It was easy enough for the
girls, who had only to read the beautiful thought that "spring is the
pleasantest season of the year." Now and then a new girl, from the east,
awfully precise, would begin her essay--"spring is the most pleasant
season of the year," and her would we call down with derisive laughter,
whereat she walked to her seat, very stiffly, with a proud dry-eyed look
in her face, only to lay her head upon her desk when she reached it, and
weep silently until school closed. But "speakin' pieces" did not meet
with favor from the boys, save one or two good boys who were in training
by their parents for congressmen or presidents.
The rest of us, who were just boys, with no desire ever to be anything
else, endured the tyranny of compulsory oratory about a month, and then
resolved to abolish the whole business by a general revolt. Big and
little, we agreed to stand by each other, break up the new exercise, and
get back to the old order of things--the hurdle races in mental
arithmetic and the geographical chants which we could run and intone
together.
Was I a mutineer? Well, say, son, your Pa was a constituent conspirator.
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