C. C. F. (rising slowly.) C-C-C-Christopher C-C-C-Colum-b-b-b-bus F-F-Fitts. I st-st-st-stutter! (Sitting.)
TEACHER. Ah! do you?
C. C. F. (rising slowly). Ye-ye-yes, sir! s-s-s-s-sometimes. (Sitting.)
TEACHER. Next!
B. F. S. (drawling). My father knows you. He used ter go to school with you. Says you and him played hookey one day and tumbled inter the mill-pond—and—he! he! ye both got a flogging!—My name’s Benjamin Franklin Squeers, like my father’s. (Scholars titter.)
TEACHER. That will do, Benjamin Franklin. Your father evidently had some one else in mind. The class may sing the multiplication table. (Class sing “Five times one are five,” etc., to the tune of Yankee Doodle.)
TEACHER. You may now all take your books and slates. The infant class may pass out on the floor. You may look at the words on the board and get ready to read them. (Class forms a semicircle in front of teacher’s desk or board. Teacher writes the following on board:)
1. Herod the tetrarch.
2. This is a worm; do not tread on it.
3. This is the heir; come, let us kill him.
FIRST BOY (reads slowly). He—rode—the—Don’t know that word.
TEACHER. Didn’t I tell you to study while I was writing?