He heard some of the boys over by the window crack some pea-nuts and giggle.
"—I don't care a cent for Daniel Webster—"
Billy paused, and was hunting desperately for the next word; but Grandfather Morton had voted against Mr. Webster a good many times, and down came the old gentleman's cane on the floor.
That was the signal for a storm of applause all over the hall; but Billy groped in every corner of his mind in vain for the rest of his speech. Whether he had left it in the garret or the barn, or up in the pasture lot, it was gone; and when the stamping and clapping stopped, and the audience began to listen again, there was nothing more for them to hear.
It was so terribly hot in that hall; and it grew all the more like the Fourth of July, or a baker's oven, all the way to his seat, after Billy gave the matter up, and walked down from the platform.
But how they did cheer then!
The boys did their best, and even the ladies seemed to be shouting.
"Did I say anything so good as all that?" thought Billy.
But at the end of the debate, which came very soon after Billy's effort, Grandfather Morton shook hands with him very proudly; and it was the president of the society—and he had been a member of the Legislature—who came up just then, and said,
"Capital speech of yours, Mr. Morton. Best thing of the evening."