Papa and mamma watch
them from the window till they turn the corner, and then go back to
the Sunday paper with a secure sort of feeling. They won't learn
anything they oughtn't to at the Sabbath-school.
THE REVOLVING YEAR
"'It snows!' cries the schoolboy, 'Hurrah!'
And his shout is heard through parlor and hall."
MCGUFFEY's THIRD READER.
(Well, maybe it was the Second Reader. And if it was the Fourth,
what difference does it make? And, furthermore, who 's doing this
thing, you or me?)
Had it not been that never in my life have I ever heard anybody say
either "It snows!" or "Hurrah!" it is improbable that I should have
remembered the first line of a poem describing the effect produced
upon different kinds of people by the sight of the first snowstorm
of winter. Had it not been for the plucky (not to say heroic)
effort to rhyme "hall" with "hurrah" I should not have remembered
the second, and still another line of it, depicting the emotions
of a poor widow with a large family and a small woodpile, is burned
into my memory only by reason of the shocking language it contains,
the more shocking in that it was deliberately put forth to be read
by innocent-minded children. Poor Carrie Rinehart! When she stood
up to read that, she got as red as a beet, and I believed her when
she told me afterward that she thought she would sink right through
that floor.
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