however, when
Mr. Hinman wasn't looking, that he forgot half his "piece," broke down
and cried. He also cried after school, a little more bitterly, and with
far better reason.

Then, after an awful pause, in which the conspirators could hear the
beating of each other's hearts, my name was called.

I sat still at my desk and said:

"I ain't goin' to speak no piece."

Mr. Hinman looked gently surprised and asked:

"Why not, Robert?"

I replied:

"Because there ain't goin' to be any more speakin' pieces."

The teacher's eyes grew round and big as he inquired:

"Who says there will not?"

I said, in slightly firmer tones, as I realized that the moment had come
for dragging the rest of the rebels into court:

"All of us boys!"

But Mr. Hinman smiled, and said quietly that he guessed there would be
"a little more speaking before the close of the session." Then laying
his hand on my shoulder, with most punctilious but chilling courtesy, he
invited me to the rostrum. The "rostrum" was twenty-five feet distant,
but I arrived there on schedule time and only touched my feet to the
floor twice on my way.

And then and there, under Mr. Hinman's judicious coaching, before the
assembled school, with feelings, nay, emotions which I now shudder to
recall, I did my first "song and dance." Many times before had I stepped
off a solo-cachuca to the staccato pleasing of a fragment of slate
frame, upon which my tutor was a gifted performer, but never until that
day did I accompany myself with words. Boy like, I had chosen for my
"piece" a poem sweetly expressive of those peaceful virtues which I most
heartily despised. So that my performance, at the inauguration of the
strike, as Mr. Hinman conducted the overture, ran something like this--

"Oh, not for me (whack) is the rolling (whack) drum,
Or the (whack, whack) trumpet's wild (whack) appeal! (Boo-hoo!)
Or the cry (swish--whack) of (boo-hoo-hoo!) war when the (whack) foe
is come (ouch!)
Or the (ow--wow!) brightly (whack) flashing (whack-whack) steel!
(wah-hoo, wah-hoo!)"

Words and symbols can not convey to the most gifted imagination the
gestures with which I illustrated the seven stanzas of this beautiful
poem. I had really selected it to please my mother, whom I had invited
to be present, when I supposed I would deliver it. But the fact that she
attended a missionary meeting in the Baptist church that afternoon made
me a friend of mis