Ramsey Milholland | Page 6

the banner pupil she was with hourly frequency an exhibit before the
whole class.
Ramsey found her worst of all when her turn came in "Declamation,"
on Friday afternoons. When she ascended the platform, bobbed a little

preliminary bow and began, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear,"
Ramsey included Paul Revere and the Old North Church and the whole
Revolutionary War in his antipathy, since they somehow appeared to
be the property of the Teacher's Pet. For Dora held this post in
"Declamation" as well as in everything else; here, as elsewhere, the
hateful child's prowess surpassed that of all others; and the teacher
always entrusted her with the rendition of the "patriotic selections":
Dora seemed to take fire herself when she declared:
"The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by
that steed in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat."
Ramsey himself was in the same section of declaimers, and performed
next--a ghastly contrast. He gave a "selection from Shakespeare,"
assigned by the teacher; and he began this continuous misfortune by
stumbling violently as he ascended the platform, which stimulated a
general giggle already in being at the mere calling of his name. All of
the class were bright with happy anticipation, for the miserable Ramsey
seldom failed their hopes, particularly in "Declamation." He faced them,
his complexion wan, his expression both baleful and horrified; and he
began in a loud, hurried voice, from which every hint of intelligence
was excluded:
"Most pottent, grave, and rev--"
The teacher tapped sharply on her desk, and stopped him. "You've
forgotten to bow," she said. "And don't say 'pottent.' The word is
'potent'."
Ramsey flopped his head at the rear wall of the room, and began again:
"Most pottent potent gray and revenerd signers my very nobe and
approve good masters that I have tan away this sole man's dutter it is
mose true true I have marry dur the very headman frun tuv my fending
hath this extent no more rude am I in speech--in speech--rude am I in
speech--in speech--in speech--in speech--"
He had stalled. Perhaps the fatal truth of that phrase, and some sense of

its applicability to the occasion had interfered with the mechanism
which he had set in operation to get rid of the "recitation" for him. At
all events, the machine had to run off its job all at once, or it wouldn't
run at all. Stopped, it stayed stopped, and backing off granted no new
impetus, though he tried, again and again. "Hath this extent no more
rude am I in speech--" He gulped audibly. "Rude rude rude am I--rude
am I in speech--in speech--in speech. Rude am I in speech--"
"Yes," the irritated teacher said, as Ramsey's failing voice continued
huskily to insist upon this point. "I think you are!" And her nerves were
a little soothed by the shout of laughter from the school--it was never
difficult for teachers to be witty. "Go sit down, Ramsey, and do it after
school."
His ears roaring, the unfortunate went to his seat, and, among all the
hilarious faces, one stood out--Dora Yocum's. Her laughter was
precocious; it was that of a confirmed superior, insufferably adult--she
was laughing at him as a grown person laughs at a child.
Conspicuously and unmistakably, there was something indulgent in her
amusement. He choked. Here was a little squirt of a high-school girl
who would trot up to George Washington himself and show off around
him, given the opportunity; and George Washington would probably
pat her on the head, or give her a medal--or something. Well, let him!
Ramsey didn't care. He didn't care for George Washington, or Paul
Revere, or Shakespeare, or any of 'em. They could all go to the dickens
with Dora Yocum. They were all a lot of smarties anyway and he hated
the whole stew of 'em!
There was one, however, whom he somehow couldn't manage to hate,
even though this one officially seemed to be as intimately associated
with Dora Yocum and superiority as the others were. Ramsey couldn't
hate Abraham Lincoln, even when Dora was chosen to deliver the
"Gettysburg Address" on the twelfth of February. Vaguely, yet
reassuringly, Ramsey felt that Lincoln had resisted adoption by the
intellectuals. Lincoln had said "Government of the people, by the
people, for the people," and that didn't mean government by the teacher
and the Teacher's Pet and Paul Revere and Shakespeare and suchlike; it

meant government by everybody, and therefore Ramsey had as much to
do with it as anybody else had. This was friendly; and he believed that
if Abraham Lincoln could have walked into the schoolroom, Lincoln
would have been as friendly with him as with Dora and the teacher
herself. Beyond a doubt, Dora