Again the boy waved the fingers and the red wrister at me.  Again he paused, gathering himself for the climax.  That gesture was abominable, but at such a time I dared not interrupt.

“‘My castles are my king’s alone from turret to foundation stone,’” he cried.  The red wrister flashed beneath my eye.  Ira had even forgotten his book and let it fall to his side.  He took a step forward; paused with one knee bent and the other stiff; extended his right arm and shouted, “’The hand of Dooglas is his own, and never shall in friendly grasp the hand of sech as Marmyyon clasp.’”

[Illustration:  “‘At my sover-sover-yne’s will.’”]

Well done, Ira!  The proud Marmion must indeed have trembled until his armor rattled if the Scot bellowed at him in that way and shook a red wrister so violently under his very nose.  Excellent, Ira; you put spirit in your reading.  One can almost picture you beneath Tantallion’s towers, drawing your cloak around you and giving cold respect to the stranger guest.  But why say “Dooglas”?

“S-o-u-p spells soup,” answered Ira loftily to my question.  “Then D-o-u-g must spell doog.”

“I tell you it’s Douglas.  ‘The hand of Douglas is his own,’” I cried.  At the mention of the doughty Scot I pounded the floor with my crutch and repeated “Dug—­dug—­dug.”

“But Teacher Thomas allus said Doog,” exclaimed Chester Holmes.

“I don’t care what Teacher Thomas said,” I retorted.  “You must say Dug—­Dug—­Douglas.”

“But Teacher Thomas is the best speaker they is,” piped in Lulu Ann Nummler from the end of the bench.

“I don’t care if Teacher Thomas can recite better than Demosthenes himself,” I snapped.  “In this school we say Douglas.”  My crutch emphasized this mandate, but I could not see how it was received, for every scholar’s face was hidden from me by a book.

“Now, Abraham, six lines.”

Abraham Lincoln Spiker was two years younger than Ira Snarkle, but he seemed much taller and correspondingly thinner.  In our valley the boys have a fashion of being born long, and getting shorter and fatter as they grow older.  Abraham’s mother in making his clothes had provided against the day when he would weigh two hundred pounds, and consequently his garments hung all around him, giving him an exceedingly dispirited look.  His hair relieved this somewhat, for it was white and always stood gaily on end, defying brush and comb.  Daniel Arker, a sturdy black-haired lad, would have done fuller justice to the passage that fell to Abraham, for the Spiker boy with his gentle lisp never shone in elocution; but our reading class is a lottery, as we go from scholar to scholar down the line.  The lot falling to him, Abraham pushed himself up from the bench, grasped his book fiercely with both hands, and fixed his eyes intently on the ceiling.

“Go on,” I commanded kindly.

“‘Fierth broke he forth,’” lisped the boy.