that ever
spread itself on the page. As even unto this day I do the same.

Well, one year the Teacher introduced an innovation; "compositions" by
the girls and "speakin' pieces" by the boys. 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.
He was in the color guard. You see, the first boy called on for a
declamation was to announce the strike, and as my name stood very
high--in the alphabetical roll of pupils--I had an excellent chance of
leading the assaulting column, a distinction for which I was not at all
ambitious, being a stripling of tender years, ruddy countenance, and
sensitive feelings. However, I stiffened the sinews of my soul, girded
on my armor by slipping an atlas back under my jacket and was ready for
the fray, feeling a little terrified shiver of delight as I thought that
the first lick Mr. Hinman gave me would make him think he had broken my
back.

The hour for "speakin' pieces," an hour big with fate, arrived on time.
A boy named Aby Abbott was called up ahead of me, but he happened to be
one of the presidential aspirants (he was mate on an Illinois river
steamboat, stern-wheeler at that, the last I knew of him), and of course
he flunked and "said" his piece--a sadly prophetic selection--"Mr.
President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope."
We made such suggestive and threatening gestures at him,