But Mrs. White interrupted Jimmy just then by saying that she must insist on temperance selections at these programmes, whereat Pearlie Watson's hand waved appealingly, and Miss Barner gave her permission to speak.
"Please ma'am," Pearl said, addressing Mrs. White, "Jimmy and me thought anything about a rattlesnake would do for a temperance piece, and if you had only let Jimmy go on you would have seen what happened even a snake that et what he hadn't ought to, and please ma'am, Jimmy and me thought it might be a good lesson for all of us."
Miss Barner thought that Pearlie's point was well taken, and took Jimmy with her into the vestry from which he emerged a few minutes later, flushed and triumphant, and recited the same selection, with a possible change of text in one place:
As I was going to the lake
I met a little rattlesnake;
I fed him on some jelly-cake,
Which made his little stomach ache.
The musical committee then sang:
We're for home and mother,
God and native land,
Grown up friend and brother,
Give us now your hand.
and won loud applause. Little Sissy Moore knew only the first verse, but it would never have been known that she was saying dum—dum—dum—dum—dum—dum—dum—dum dum-dum-dum, if Mary Simpson hadn't told.
Wilford Ducker, starched as stiff as boiled and raw starch could make him, recited "Perish, King Alcohol, we will grow up," but was accorded a very indifferent reception by the Band of Hopers. Wilford was allowed to go to Band of Hope only when Miss Barner went for him and escorted him home again. Mrs. Ducker had been very particular about Wilford from the first.
Then the White girls recited a strictly suitable piece. It was entitled "The World and the Conscience."
Lily represented a vain woman of the world bent upon pleasure with a tendency toward liquid refreshment. Her innocent china-blue eyes and flaxen braids were in strange contrast to the mad love of glittering wealth which was supposed to fill her heart: