What Katy Did at School Part 11

Rose stood up with great gravity. "I would ask for a moment's delay, that the Society may get out its pocket-handkerchiefs," she said.

"My piece is an affecting one. I didn't mean it, but it came so. We cannot always be cheerful." Here she heaved a sigh, which set the S. S. U. C. to laughing, and began.

A SCOTCH POEM.

Wee, crimson-tippet Willie Wink, Wae's me, drear, dree, and dra, A waeful thocht, a fearsome flea, A wuther wind, and a'.

Sair, sair thy mither sabs her lane, Her een, her mou, are wat; Her cauld kail hae the corbies ta'en, And grievously she grat.

Ah, me, the suthering of the wind!

Ah, me, the waesom mither!

Ah, me the bairnies left ahind, The s.h.i.ther, hither, blither!

"What _does_ it mean?" cried the girls, as Rose folded up the paper and sat down.

"Mean?" said Rose, "I'm sure I don't know. It's Scotch, I tell you!

It's the kind of thing that people read, and then they say, 'One of the loveliest gems that Burns ever wrote!' I thought I'd see if I couldn't do one too. Anybody can, I find: it's not at all difficult."

All the poems having been read, Katy now proposed that they should play "Word and Question." She and Clover were accustomed to the game at home, but to some of the others it was quite new.

Each girl was furnished with a slip of paper and a pencil, and was told to write a word at the top of the paper, fold it over, and pa.s.s it to her next left-hand neighbor.

"Dear me! I don't know what to write," said Mary Silver.

"Oh, write any thing," said Clover. So Mary obediently wrote "Any thing," and folded it over.

"What next?" asked Alice Gibbons.

"Now a question," said Katy. "Write it under the word, and fold over again. No, Amy, not _on_ the fold. Don't you see, if you do, the writing will be on the wrong side of the paper when we come to read?"

The questions were more troublesome than the words, and the girls sat frowning and biting their pencil-tops for some minutes before all were done. As the slips were handed in, Katy dropped them into the lid of her work-basket, and thoroughly mixed and stirred them up.

"Now," she said, pa.s.sing it about, "each draw one, read, and write a rhyme in which the word is introduced and the question answered. It needn't be more than two lines, unless you like. Here, Rose, it's your turn first."

"Oh, what a hard game!" cried some of the girls; but pretty soon they grew interested, and began to work over their verses.

"I should uncommonly like to know who wrote this abominable word,"

said Rose, in a tone of despair. "Clover, you rascal, I believe it was you."

Clover peeped over her shoulder, nodded, and laughed.

"Very well then!" s.n.a.t.c.hing up Clover's slip, and putting her own in its place, "you can just write on it yourself,--I shan't! I never heard of such a word in my life! You made it up for the occasion, you know you did!"

"I didn't! it's in the Bible," replied Clover, setting to work composedly on the fresh paper. But when Rose opened Clover's slip she groaned again.

"It's just as bad as the other!" she cried. "Do change back again, Clovy,--that's a dear."

"No, indeed!" said Clover, guarding her paper: "you've changed once, and now you must keep what you have."

Rose made a face, chewed her pencil awhile, and then began to write rapidly. For some minutes not a word was spoken.

"I've done!" said Esther Dearborn at last, flinging her paper into the basket-lid.

"So have I!" said Katy.

One by one the papers were collected and jumbled into a heap. Then Katy, giving all a final shake, drew out one, opened it, and read.

WORD.--Radishes.

QUESTION.--How do you like your clergymen done?

How do I like them done? Well, that depends.

I like them _done_ on sleepy, drowsy Sundays; I like them under-done on other days; Perhaps a little _over_-done on Mondays.

But always I prefer them old as pa, And not like radishes, all red and raw.

"Oh, _what_ a rhyme! cried Clover.

"Well,--what is one to do?" said Ellen Gray. Then she stopped and bit her lip, remembering that no one was supposed to know who wrote the separate papers.

"Aha! it's your, is it, Ellen?" said Rose. "You're an awfully clever girl, and an ornament to the S. S. U. C. Go on, Katy."

Katy opened the second slip.

WORD.--Anything.

QUESTION.--Would you rather be a greater fool than you seem, or seem a greater fool than you are?

I wouldn't seem a fool for anything, my dear, If I could help it; but I can't, I fear.

"Not bad," said Rose, nodding her head at Sally Alsop, who blushed crimson.

The third paper ran,--

WORD.--Mahershahalhashbaz.

QUESTION.--Does your mother know you're out?

Rose and Clover exchanged looks.

Why, of course my mother knows it, For she sent me out herself.

She told me to run quickly, for It wasn't but a mile; But I found it was much farther, And my feet grew tired and weary, And I couldn't hurry greatly, So I took a long, long while.

Beside, I stopped to read your word, A stranger one I never heard!

I've met with _Pa_-pistical, That's pat; But _Ma-hershahalhashbaz, What's that?