BOY. Freckles.
TEACHER. Well, that is not what I was thinking of Christopher!
C. C. FITTS. I g-g-guess it’s d-d-dirt!
TEACHER. There’s a dictionary somewhere in the schoolhouse. You may hunt it up and look for that word. (The two boys, appearing tired and discouraged, start on their quest, looking in the most unlikely places, even on the nails where pupils’ garments are hung. The quest should be a quiet one, the fun lying in its utter hopelessness.)
BOY (in seat ). I don’t understand this question. (Reads.) A milkman spilled a pint of milk out of an eight-gallon can, how much milk was left?
SECOND BOY (in seat ). Hoh! that’s easy. There wasn’t none left.
TEACHER. Explain.
SECOND BOY. ’Cause the rest was water.
TEACHER (resuming). The next may tell me about some Bible character. Who was Esau?
PUPIL. Esau lived six hundred years before Christ. He wrote fables for a living, and sold the copyright of them for a bottle of potash.