Well, every kid in the room shot up his hand to get first chance; and the lucky one went to the blackboard and drew the moon’s face and turned to the deacon to thank him for the dime. But the old man chuckled and shook his head. Then another kid tried it. And he didn’t do it right. Every boy in the room tried it but me. Whatever the trick was, no one caught on to it. I figured I’d be just as unlucky as the rest. But I drew the eyes and the nose and the circle as best I could. And what do you know if the deacon didn’t hand me the dime! I pretty near fainted, I was so surprised.
“You see,” he told the others, patting me on the head, “Jerry is the only b’y in the room who [[38]]used his eyes an’ noticed that I done it with my left hand.”
“But he’s left-handed,” Bid Stricker cried, mad as hops to think that I had won the dime.
At this the deacon scratched his head and looked kind of silly.
He had another test for the girls; and when this was over, Miss Grimes motioned to Amelia Didman to play a few pieces on the talking machine. Amelia got the machine wound up and put the needle down. A familiar toot jumped at me out of the hole in the cloth. And right off I knew that I was in for trouble.
If you can imagine the talking machine record and the tin frog fighting each other tooth and nail, that is how it sounded. First the record would sort of swell up and give an angry toot, as though it was determined to make the frog back up and shut up. And then the frog would dig in and screech: “R-r-r-a-t-s!” And that would make the record madder than ever and it would stomp its front feet like a fighting bull and give a still louder toot. And then the frog would lift itself onto its toes and sass the other. Then they would clinch and knock out each other’s false teeth and kick each other in the seat of the pants.
The scholars were laughing fit to kill. Sort of [[39]]dazed at first, Miss Grimes’ face got red and she hurried to the talking machine to see what was wrong. Then she gave an awful jump. For, as she leaned over the machine, the record and the frog got a strangle hold on each other. Thump! The record smashed the frog on the left ear. And when the frog quit wabbling it gave the other a wallop on the snout.
Being a member of the county board, the deacon tried awful hard to be dignified and set a good example and not laugh. But when the record got a smash on the snout that was too much for the old gentleman. He busted right out. And you could hear him cackling above everybody else.
“I guess,” said Miss Grimes, frosty-like, “that our talking machine needs repairing,” and she shut it off and rapped for order.
As I say, I had expected that I would catch it. But for once I was lucky. And that noon Scoop and I and Tom waited around till the teachers came out of the schoolhouse, then we slipped into the schoolroom and got the frog. I suspect that it is a wonder to Miss Grimes to this day what made her talking machine act up. For when the man came to fix it, he could find nothing wrong with it except the hole in the cloth. [[40]]