Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/199

 MISS ANN ORR.

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��at all in public, to the early training and inspiration which he received in that direction as Miss Orr's pupil.

My first attempt at "speaking a piece" was in her school. Long and hard I labored to commit to memory the little poem in The Young Reader, commencing :

•• Mamma! I 've lost my thimble, My spool has rolled away.

My arms arc aching dreadfully, I want to go and play !"

When the hour arrived for my debut, I walked out tremblingly before the school, and, standing with my back close against the door, and my hands behind me, rattled it off as fast as I could speak the words, swaying my body from side to side, keeping time to the metrical movement of my reci- tation, and scratching the door at every movement back and forth with the buttons on the back of my pina- fore. Miss Orr's uplifted ruler, as she stood facing the school, prevented the burst of laughter which doubtless was struggling beneath the jacket of many an unsympathizing "big boy," over my awkward performance ; and when I had finished she smiled (I think) and said, "very well," which sent me to my seat flushed from chin to ear with the pride of conscious success. She afterward told me kindly that I had better take the same piece next week ; and then she gave me the same advice for the next week and the next, and each time she drilled me, and trained me in emphasis, accent, po- sition, gesture, etc., etc., until the re- sult was, that at the end of the term this had been my only piece, and she had drilled me every week upon it without letting me know that I had made a miserable failure of it in the first place, and she had been all that time trying to work me up to a respect- able degree of success. I was to re- cite it on the "last day," before the committee and other visitors ; for it was to be a grand exhibition-day all that we had been learning during the winter. 2

��She particularly tried to make me assume, in this piece, a discontented, half-crying tone and manner. In this I came far short of satisfying her at any of its recitals. But on examination- day, when I stood before all those strange faces, my voice began to trem- ble, and then seeing a boy on the back seat laughing at me, my throat filled, and the very voice and manner which she had so much desired, had come irresistibly upon me. I drew my sleeve across my eyes at the close of the first verse, and commenced the second. As my eyes continued to fill with tears. I wiped them on the corner of my apron and struggled mi through the many verses to the end, and hur- ried to my seat to cry in real earnest. Quietly passing through the rows of seats, she came and stood by mine, and when the minister was making his speech she stooped down, and putting her hand on my head, said, " You spoke it just right. Do n't cry."

That was enough. I was satisfied. If she said it was "just right," I would cry no more, and I was happy. The long speeches came to a close, the minister made a prayer, the school closed, and I crowded with the others to kiss the teacher good-by, and have my little woolen tippet tied close under my chin by her warm hands ; and 1 never saw Miss Orr afterward ; though I think she continued to follow her vocation as a teacher for some years after.

I have written my own recollections of her as a teacher. I have drawn a somewhat austere picture, perhaps, — so she seemed to me ; but I believe she was a kind and faithful teacher, notwithstanding. She had rough ele- ments to deal with, and she believed with Aaron Hill, and practiced what she believed :

" Tender handed stroke a nettle,

And it stings you for your pains: Grasp it like a man of mettle.

And it soft as silk remains. 'Tis the same with common natures.

Use 'em kindly, they rebel ; But be rough as nutmeg-graters,

And the rogues obey you well."

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