"Mercy, no!" ejaculated Carrie in astonishment. "I'm not through with geography yet."
"Oh, I don't s'pose I am, either, but we have three histories and no geographies at our house, so I couldn't read up geography. To— Dionysius Ulysses Humphrey Llewelyn explains when I don't understand, and he draws maps to show how the battles were fought. We learn poetry about fights, too. To— my brother is going to be a soldier when he gets big."
The name with which she had so generously supplied her brother was becoming very hard to manage, and she sat silently eyeing her bare feet while she tried in vain to think of some way out of the dilemma. She had told Carrie that she always called her brother his full name. What could she do but prove it?
Carrie's voice interrupted her meditations. "Don't you hate to speak before people—I mean, speak pieces? It always scares me so I forget half of my verses and then papa is so disappointed. Mamma always says, 'Never mind, dearie,
'If at first you don't succeed,
Try, try again.'
So I keep on trying and maybe some day I can remember them all right."
"Oh, I just love to speak!" Tabitha cried. "I've just learned Barbara Fritchie, and it is grand!
"'who touches a hair in yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!' he said."
Carrie clapped her hands. "Oh, say the whole of it, Theodora Gabrielle, please!"
So Tabitha flew to the top of the rock from which she had been surveying the waste of desert when Carrie had first put in appearance, and with ringing voice declaimed the stirring words to her admiring audience.