A REMINISCENCE OF EXHIBITION DAY.

“WELL, no,” the boy said, “the thing didn’t go off exactly as I expected. You see, I was the sixth boy in the class, that was next to the head when the class formed left in front, and I was pretty near the first boy called on to declaim. I had got a mighty good ready and had a bully piece too. Ah, it was a rip staver.”

And the boy sighed as he paused to lift a segment out of a green apple, and placed it where it would do the most good, for a cholera doctor. We asked what piece it was.

“Spartacus to the Gladiators,” he said. “Just an old he raker of a piece. I got it all by heart, and used to go clear out to the Cascade to rehearse and hook strawberries. Old Fitch”—Mr. Fitch was the boy’s preceptor, one of the finest educators in the state—“he taught me all the gestures and inflections and flub drubs, and said I was just layin’ over the biggest toad in the puddle——”

“Excelling all your competitors, probably Mr. Fitch said,” we suggested.

“Yes,” the boy replied, “he’s a toney old cyclopedia on the patter, is old Fitchy. But him and me was both dead sure I was goin’ to skin the rag off the bush——”

“Win all the honors,” we gently corrected.

“Yes,” he said, “and the way it went off was bad. You see, I didn’t feel easy in my Sunday clothes on a week day to begin with. And my collar was too tight and my necktie was too blue, and I was in a hurry to get off early, so I only blacked the toes of my boots, and left the heels as red as a concert ticket. And the crowd there was in the school-house. Jammed. Every body in their good clothes and every body looking solemn as Monday morning. When my name was called something came up in my throat as big as a foot-ball. I couldn’t swallow it and I couldn’t spit it out. And when I got up on the platform—oh, Godfrey’s cordial! did you ever see a million heads without any bodies?”

We felt ashamed of our limited experience while we confessed that we could not recall having witnessed such a phenomenon.

“I never did till then,” the boy went on, “but they were there, for a fact, and I began to remember when these heads danced round and round the room that I had been forgetting my piece in the last five minutes just as fast as I ever forgot to fix the kindling wood at night. But I commenced. I got along with ‘It had been a day of triumph in Capua’ and ‘Lentulus returning with victorious eagles’ and all that well enough; but when I got on into the heavy business, I was left, sure. If Spartacus had talked to the gladiators as I did, they would have thought he was drunk and hustled him off to bed. It was awful. I stumbled along until I came to ‘Ye stand here now like giants as ye are. The strength of brass is in your rugged sinews, but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curling locks, will with his dainty fingers pat your red brawn and bet his sesterces upon your blood.’”

“That was excellent, capital,” we said, applauding, for the boy had growled off the last sentence like a first heavy villain.

“Oh yes, is it though?” he said, with some asperity. “Well, that’s the way I was going to say it that Friday, but what I did say was, ‘The strength of brass is in your rugged sinews, but to-morrow afternoon (you see I got to thinking of a base ball match) some Doman Aronis breathing sweet perfumery from his curly socks, will pat your bed rawn and bet his sister sees your blood.’”

“Did they laugh?” we asked.

“Oh no!” he replied, with an inflection that type won’t take. “Oh, no; they never smiled again; they didn’t. It was when I got down a little that they felt bad. When he says, ‘If ye are beasts, then stand here waiting like fat oxen for the butcher’s knife.’ I told them, ‘If ye be cat fattle, then wait here standing like a butcher for the carving knife.’ And I got worse and worse until it came to this, ‘Oh, Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender mother to me. Thou hast taught the poor timid shepherd boy, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute note, to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl. Thou hast taught him to drive the sword through rugged links of mail and brass and warm it in the marrow of his foe!’”

“Bravo!” we shouted.

“Cheese it,” he said, sententiously; “I didn’t say it just that way. I said, ‘Oh Rome, thou has ten a binder mother to me. Thou hast taught the poor boy who never knew a sheep note to glare into the laughing ear of a fierce Numidian eyeball even as a lyin’ boy at a girl. Thou hast taught him to mail his ragged brass through swords of link, and marry it in the warmer of his foe.’”

“And then?” we asked.

“I cried,” he said, “and went down. Everybody was cry’n’. They all had their faces in their handkerchiefs or behind fans, and were shaking so it nearly jarred the school-house.”

“You should practice elocution during vacation,” we suggested, “and you will not fail again.”

He bolted the rest of the green apple, threw his bare feet up in the air, and walked around on his hands in little circles. “Don’t have no speakin’ in vacation,” he said.

And we knew that, boy-like, he was going to let the days and the morrow take care each of its own evils, and we wondered as we came away how many fathers would recognize their own boys in the hero of this sketch, and if dear old Fitch, the oldest boy, with the clearest head and the tenderest heart we ever knew, would remember him.