"The boy stood on the burning deck,
Peeling potatoes by the peck!
The flames rolled on and scorched his shins,
As he stood peeling potato skins!
'Oh pa'!' he cried, 'the flames is hot,
Come, put the potatoes in the pot!'
But his father, alas! ne'er came to sup,
So the flames rolled on and frizzled him up!"
"Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous as that?" cried Nelly. "Poor Casabianca! I used to cry over him dreadfully; but I shall never think of him now without laughing. Where did you learn that, Jimmy?"
"Oh, Harry Agnew told it to me; he said he repeated it one day in school, when the master asked him if he could say a piece of poetry, and everybody burst out laughing. The master laughed too; so he couldn't put anybody down for a bad mark, though Harry was afraid he would."
"That was almost equal to the trick we played at school," said I. "We wanted the doctor to give us a holiday, but he didn't seem to see it; so when we were called up for our reading after recess, we were told to read Montgomery's poem called 'Questions to Birds and their Answers.' One of the verses is about the swallow, and reads thus:
"'Swallow, why homeward turned thy joyful wing?'
'In a far land I heard the voice of spring;
I found myself that moment on the way,
My wings, my wings, they had not power to stay.'
—but we changed it as though the doctor was asking us a question and we were answering—this way:
"'Boys! why are you forever on the wing,
Wanting a holiday for everything?'
'From you we are so glad to get away,
Our legs, our legs, they will not let us stay.'"
How we all laughed over this; it was real true, too; and pretty soon after, as it was getting dark, I bid them good-by and ran home.
Next morning, what should Aunt Elsie and Aunt Ruth (Aunt Priscilla was away on a visit) take into their heads, but that they hadn't had any fun house-cleaning—(I suppose they must think it's fun, or they wouldn't do it so often)—for ever so long; so nothing would suit them but to set the whole house in an uproar as quick as possible. Of course, I was in the way, whether I stayed in the garret or the kitchen; knocked down three pails and a scrubbing brush every time I went down stairs, nearly drowned Poddles in hot soapsuds, splashed myself all over with whitewash trying to "do" the kitchen ceiling (on my own account, when nobody was by), until I looked as if I had been out in a snowstorm, and watering the windows outside with the long hosepipe, until every one of them was dripping inside like a waterfall.