Page 348 - 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 ...

and false teeth, and waterfall?;, and rats, and mice, and curled hair, and
men, and women, and little boys— all mixed up together. You
couldn't tell t'other from which I
Old Jim Pratt he went down among the rest; and, as he went, the
toe of his skate ketch ed into that beautiful braid on my valler petti­
coat, and in less'n a minnit tore it clear off and wound it ;t11 among
the understandings of all the scrabbling people.
I was madder’ii a hatter! I riz my pole to let 'em have some; but
before I could strike, the strain on that illigaut trimming upsot my
equalibrius, and down I went, striking the back of my crannyrimi so
hard, that for a minnit I thought my skull bone was broke clean
across [ It seemed as if I could bear the; rough edges grate together.
Just as I was a-rising to get up, along come a feller at a 2.40 rate,
without any eyes into his head, I expect, for he didn't see me Sut
undertook to skate rite over me, and away he come, head fust, onto
the ice, with a grunt that sounded like a pig’s when lie’s just gwitie to
sleep after eating a whole pail of swill.
I grabbed hold of his coat-tail to hist myself up by, and, law sake!
the doth parted like a cobweb, and left him with a short jacket on,
and letting me back onto the tee harder than afore 1
Sam Jellison he arrived jest at this minnit, and I didn't say nothing
agin his helping of me. I felt as if T was nigh about played out. He
esquacted me to the shore, with all that blue braid a-trailing after me.
And when Pd got breath, he went up home with me, and I heard him
kiss Bets behind the pantry door. Wall, wall, young folks will be?
young folks, and ’taln't 110 use to try to hinder 'em.
I was so sore for a week that .[ ■ couldn’t, git my anus to my head
without screeching, and I felt all over as if I'd been onjinted and
jined onto another person’s understandings.
A s soon as I got better, though, I let Sam help me larn, and I can
skate the master now. You never seed the beat! Its the grandest
exercise ! and so healthy J I ’ve friz both of my feet, and my nose,
and my faec has mostly peeled, and I've got the runiatiz treraenjous;
but I ’ve larned to skate, and what do I keer [— Cl a r a -Augusta.