After the singing-lesson small wooden slates (the old-fashioned kind bound in red cloth) were passed around and the following exercise in orthography given out: "It is an agreeable sight to witness the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed peddler attempting to gauge the symmetry of a peeled onion which a sibyl has stabbed with a poniard." This task was accomplished with much puckering of eyebrows, and no one, it may be said, succeeded in writing all the words correctly.
The next lesson announced was reading, for which primers were distributed. These were small books with brown-paper covers, the lessons being tongue-twisters, beginning with such familiar ones as "She sells sea-shells," "Peter Piper," etc., and ending with this one of more recent date, taken from the Youth's Companion:
A bitter biting bittern
Bit a better brother-bittern;
And the bitten better bittern bit the bitter biter back.
And the bitter bittern, bitten
By the better bitten bittern,
Said, "I'm a bitter bittern-biter bit, alack!"
The class stood up in front and were made to toe the line drawn in chalk on the floor. The pupil at the head was called upon first, and read until a mistake sent him to the foot, when the one next to him took his place. The master not only continually urged his pupils to greater speed, but at the same time kept a sharp lookout, and gave many words of warning to any whose feet were out of order; and the frantic efforts of the pupils to obey instructions made the lesson one of the most laughable contests of the evening. It was continued until recess, the hour for refreshments.
The dinner-pails had been given for safekeeping into the hands of the teacher. Now, when they were returned, it was discovered that the boys had received those belonging to the girls and the girls those of the boys. There was a happy correspondence in this exchange; Ichabod Thompson receiving the pail of Patience Charity Gray and she receiving his, and so on. The pupils thus paired off were to share their dinners with each other. The master, who also brought his dinner, reserved for himself the pail of the girl pupil supposed to be his favorite.