Page 347 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

sot three hens Wednesdays, and one’s eggs all addled, and otic she
got broke up afore sh’d sot a week, and t'other one hatched out three
chickens that was blind as bats, and never had no tail-feathers J
I went so airly, that f was in hopes there wouldn’t be no speckle-
petaters to see my fiist attempt; but:, lawful hear!;! the pond was
lined with ’em ! I felt rather down in the mouth at the idea of trying;
my skill afore al! them people, but I was too plucky to hack out.
I sot down on the ground, and strapped on my skates; and grab­
bing my pole firm!y in both hands, I got onto the ice. The minnit T
got. on, I sot rile down flat, in spite of all I could do, and it was as
much as five minutes afore I could git up agin. And when I did my
left foot begun for to run rite round t’other one, and I run rite round
arter it. The fust thing I knowed my heels was up, and my head
was down, and I thought it was night and all the stars in the firmary
was having a shooting-match,
Sam Jellison he seed me fall, and come and picked me up. Sam is
dreadful attentive to me, because he’s trying to shine my darter "Retsey.
I can see through it all, He wanted to help me stiddy myself, but I
wouldn’t let him, and started off upon the dog trot. 1 could run a
good deal better than T could slide. I thought I'd go over on t’other
side of the pond, where Miss Pike and some other friends of mine
was ; and, sticking" my long pole into the airholes, I made out to get
under way. And after I once got started, the difficulty was to stop
myself. I went rite ahead like a -steam injinc down grade. 1 found
it wasn't no use to fite against fate ; and, concluding that this was the
fun of skating, I drawed up my pole and let it stick out each side of
me, and sailed on. I had the wind in my back, and it tilled my yaller
petticoat so that it floated out afore me like the star spangled banner
on the Fourth of July.
I was a-coming to where the skaters were at it pretty thick ; but I
1 didn't think to take my pole in, and the fust thing I knowtd I was a
mowing of 'em down with it, rite and left, as a two-hoss mowing-ma­
chine takes down the grass on a mcdder.
The ice was lined with the ruins J Muffs, and hoods, and gloves,