Page 531 - 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 ...

It is much pleasanter then to court
Than when it is pitch dark.

Rill Jones went out one deep, dark night
To court Susannah Cree;
lie fell over a great big log, *
And hurt the cap of his knee.

Now if Jones had stayed to hum,
And had not sparked Miss Cree
Until the moon had got full again,
He would not have hurt his knee.

But that’s the way when a feller's courtin’
He would climb a popular tree,
Or go through the darkest night,
No difference if he did hurt the cap of his knee.

B o y i\ A u d i e n c e . — H o w arc w , cap o f his k n e e ? (Other hoys
laugh)
Pk m I dent,'— Order there, I say. Jf you boys don't keep order, I’ll
appoint a committee to export you,
B lctrey.— I ax you, Mr. President, aril I to be interrupted in this
manner ?
President.— No, you aren’t ; indeed you aren’t. Go on with the
read in’ of your soul-thrillin' essay, and T!il maintain order at the peril
of my individual life.
BethicW— No, J'll lead no more. I did not get up in this meetin’ to
be laughed at by a parcel of heathenish boys. I shall resoom my scat
and slay resoomcd until those benighted boys are taught to keep order
and respect intellectual latitudinarianisin. (Scats herself
F.ivEJx RiDDr.K.— I feel sorry, indeed, that the reading of this sub­
lime poem has been interrupted by die outbursting laughter of a
number of obstreperous boys. I had become deeply interested in the
fate and fortunes of the hero, Mr. William Jones, and T can say that I
have a sinccre desire to know how the poem ends*