“I remember once, when I was a little girl,” remarked Mrs. Brown, as she threaded her needle, for she was mending one of Sue’s dresses, “I had to speak a piece in school, and I didn’t know it at all well.”

“Oh, tell us about it, Mother!” begged Sue.

“Please do!” cried Bunny Brown.  For there was a funny little smile on his mother’s face, and whenever the children saw that they knew there was a story back of it.

“Well, it was this way,” went on Mrs. Brown.  “When I was a little girl I lived in the country, and I went to school in a little red brick schoolhouse about half a mile down the road from our house.  We had a very nice teacher, and one day she said we must all learn a piece to speak for the next Friday afternoon.

“Well, of course we children were all excited.  Some of us had spoken pieces before, and some of us had not.  And I was one that never had, but I was pleased to think I should get up in front of the whole school and speak a piece.

“When I went home that night I asked my mother what I should learn as my recitation.  She got down a book that she had used when she was a little school girl, and in it were a number of nice pieces.  There was one about Mary and her little lamb, but I thought that was too young for me to take, so I picked out one about a ship being wrecked at sea.  There were about ten verses to the piece, and they told how a great storm came up and drove the vessel on the rocks.”

“I’d like to see a big storm!” exclaimed Bunny.

“Please keep quiet!” begged Sue.  “Mother can’t tell about her speaking in school if you’re going to talk all the while.”

“I won’t talk any more,” promised Bunny Brown.  “Please go on, Mother.  I’ll be quiet.”

So Mrs. Brown continued: 

“I began to learn this piece about the wreck.  I don’t remember now, how it all went, but I know the first two lines were like this: 

“’The thunder rolls,
The lightning flashes!’

“I remember those lines very well,” said the children’s mother, “and I thought how wonderful it would be if I could get up there and speak them in a loud voice.  I practiced hard, too—­as hard as you have practiced for your play.  And I thought I had the piece learned perfectly.  Finally Friday afternoon came, lessons were finished, books put away and we got ready for the recitations in the main schoolroom.

“I forget the different pieces that were spoken.  There were all kinds, but none like mine.  Some were sad and some were funny, and some of the boys and girls got up and were so stage-struck that they couldn’t think of a single word of the pieces they had learned.

“Then I was afraid this would happen to me, but when my name was called, and I walked up to the platform, I was glad to find that I could remember every single word—­or at least I thought I could.

“But dear me!  As soon as I opened my mouth and began to speak it was just as though the bottom had opened and let everything fall out of everything.  All I could think of was the first two lines: