Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WHY DISTRICT SCHOOL USED TO KEEP IN VERMONT, by DANIEL LEAVENS CADY



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHY DISTRICT SCHOOL USED TO KEEP IN VERMONT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When district school was almost done
Last Line: From which she bought her watch and chain.
Subject(s): Children; Schools; Teaching & Teachers; Vermont; Childhood; Students; Educators; Professors


WHEN district school was almost done
I used to feel tremendous good;
My hands was tired with doing sums
I never quarter understood;
I couldn't see why school should keep,
But now I'm twelve, it's jest as plain—
It kept so teacher'd have a chance
To use her golden watch and chain.

I never saw as neat a watch
Excepting once at Woodstock Fair;
It opened like my 'rithmetic
In front or back or anywhere;
And Gee! it used to shine so bright
Frank Perkins said it scorched his brain—
There wouldn't been much school, I guess,
If teacher'd had no watch and chain.

The chain was sure the longest one
There was in all our part of town;
It went way up behind her neck,
And made a turn and then come down;
And on it was a slide that looked
Like some big Spanish fly from Spain—
No wonder teacher liked to teach
With such a dandy watch and chain.

When little Tim went up to read
She'd put one hand around his side,
And with the other hand she'd grasp
That insectiverous-looking slide;
When Tim said A, she'd slip it up;
At B, she'd slip it down again—
You see, he'd never learnt to read
If teacher'd had no watch and chain.

She'd wind that watch 'most every hour
Then flash it up against her ear;
Then use it for a looking glass
To see her eyes and skin was clear;
And always when she used to say
"Examples: number one, explain:"
We noticed, Edson Purse and me,
She timed us with her watch and chain.

One day she showed us after school
Her 'nitials ringwormed on the case,
And Ida Gardner saw inside
The picture of a feller's face:
And Ida said, "Why, that's the man
That met you, teacher, at the train;"
But teacher thought it was the man
From which she bought her watch and chain.





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