. He read, "He was born in a house on the hill.

"Is rice a kind of corn?

"Get me a cork for the ink jar."

Just at this point the Master went to the open door to drive away some
chickens that wanted to come in, and as Dennis had not been told to stop
he went right on. Dennis was eight, and he could read quite fast if he
kept his finger on the place. This is what he read:--

"The morn is the first part of the day.

"This is my son, I hope you will like him.

"Sin not, for God hates sin.

"Can a worm walk?

"No, it has no feet, but it can creep.

"Did you meet Fred in the street?

"Weep no more."

By this time the chickens were frightened away and Dennis was nearly out
of breath.

The Master came back. Then Eileen had a turn. They could almost say
the lessons by heart, they knew them so well.

After the reading-lesson they went back to their benches, and studied in
loud whispers, but Larry was thinking of something else. He drew a pig
with a curly tail on his slate--like this--

He held it up for Dennis to see. He wanted to tell him about Diddy and
the Fair, but the Master saw what he had done. "Come here, Larry
McQueen, and bring your slate," he said. "Sure, I'll teach you better
manners. Get up on this stool now, and show yourself." He put a large
paper dunce-cap on Larry's head, and made him sit up on a stool before
the whole school!

The other children laughed, all but Eileen. She hid her face on her
desk, and two little tears squeezed out between her fingers. But Larry
didn't cry. He pretended he didn't care at all. He sat there for what
seemed a very long time, while other children recited other lessons in
reading, and grammar, and arithmetic. The Master gave him this poem to
learn by heart:--

"I thank the Goodness and the Grace
That on my birth have smiled,
And made me in these Christian days,
A happy English child."

Larry wondered why he was called an English child, when he knew he was
Irish. And he wasn't so sure either about the "Christian days"; but he
learned it and said it to the teacher before he got down off the stool.
It seemed to him that it was about three days before noontime came. At
last they were dismissed, and the Twins went out with the other children
into the schoolyard to eat their luncheon. Dennis ate his with them,
and Larry told him the Secret.

After lunch they went back into the dark, smoky little schoolroom for
more lessons, and when