"I told you so!" even in the
back. She had a way of doing that very thing as I never saw any one
else. From the set of her head, how she carried her shoulders, the
stiffness of her spine, and her manner of walking, if you knew her
well, you could tell what she thought, the same as if you saw her face.

I followed that pencil point and in a husky voice repeated the letters.
I could see Tillie Baher laughing at me from behind her geography, and
every one else had stopped what they were doing to watch and listen, so
I forgot to be thankful that I even knew my a b c's. I spelled through
the sentence, pronounced the words and repeated them without much
thought as to the meaning; at that moment it didn't occur to me that
she had chosen the lesson because father had told her how I made
friends with the birds. The night before he had been putting me
through memory tests, and I had recited poem after poem, even long ones
in the Sixth Reader, and never made one mistake when the piece was
about birds. At our house, we heard next day's lessons for all ages
gone over every night so often, that we couldn't help knowing them by
heart, if we had any brains at all, and I just loved to get the big
folk's readers and learn the bird pieces. Father had been telling her
about it, so for that reason she thought she would start me on the
birds, but I'm sure she made me spell after a pencil point, like a
baby, on purpose to shame me, because I was two years behind the others
who were near my age. As I repeated the line Miss Amelia thought she
saw her chance. She sprang to her feet, tripped a few steps toward the
centre of the platform, and cried: "Classes, attention! Our Youngest
Pupil has just completed her first sentence. This sentence contains a
Thought. It is a wonderfully beautiful Thought. A Thought that
suggests a great moral lesson for each of us. 'Birrrds--in their
little nests--agreeee.'"

Never have I heard cooing sweetness to equal the melting tones in which
Miss Amelia drawled those words. Then she continued, after a good long
pause in order to give us time to allow the "Thought" to sink in:
"There is a lesson in this for all of us. We are here in our
schoolroom, like little birds in their nest. Now how charming it would
be if all of us would follow the example of the birds, and at our work,
and in our play, agreeee--be kind, loving, and considerate of each
other. Let us all remember always this wonderful truth: