“I looked at Betty, but she sat with downcast eyes and flushed cheeks. Annie looked scared, and I couldn’t see Charlie. Then Betty was called on and she said fifty-eight verses and quit.
“‘Are you sure that is all, Betty?’ her grandfather said in a puzzled tone.
“‘Yes, sir,’ Betty replied and took her seat.
“I came next and I had made up my mind by then that I wouldn’t keep Lissy from getting the Testament, so I recited fifty-nine verses. I can still see the amazement in Mother’s face when I sat down.
“Annie Brierly gave fifty-nine and Charlie sixty, though of course, like Betty and me, they each knew many more verses than that. Lissy would get the Testament, and I was glad of it when I saw her sitting there so proud and happy. Why didn’t Reverend Bard give it to her at once and be done with it? Whatever was he waiting for? Then I saw. Mary Lou, the strange little girl, was tripping up front in all her finery as self-possessed as you please.
“And what do you think? She said sixty-three verses and got the Testament!
“Well, you can imagine how Annie and Betty and Charlie and I felt, though Charlie wouldn’t talk about it even to me. He never admitted but what he’d said all the verses he knew, though I knew better. Hadn’t I heard him at home reciting chapter after chapter when he thought no one was listening?
“We girls went around behind the church to talk it over, and Annie cried a little, and Betty stamped her foot and said she wasn’t an example any more and she wished Mary Lou would tear her parasol and lose her mitts and get caught in a rain and spoil her hat. And we all got to laughing and forgot our disappointment.
“And now it’s bedtime for three little children I know.”