To the best of my recollection, I never made this mistake, or at
least if I did I am sure I made no inquiry afterward which might
tend further to increase my doubts; and in any event I am sure
that by the time I was old enough to stumble over Mr. Harper's
favorite big words I was old enough to tell the difference between
an ordinary animal--say, a house cat--and any one of the commoner
forms of plant life, such as, for example, the scaly-bark hickory
tree, practically at a glance. I'll add this too: Nick Carter
never wasted any of the golden moments which he and I spent together
in elucidating for me the radical points of difference between the
plants and the animals.

In the range of poetry selected by the compilers of the readers
for my especial benefit as I progressed onward from the primary
class into the grammar grades I find on examination of these
earlier American authorities an even greater array of chuckleheads
than appear in the prose divisions. I shall pass over the celebrated
instance--as read by us in class in a loud tone of voice and without
halt for inflection or the taking of breath--of the Turk who at
midnight in his guarded tent was dreaming of the hour when Greece
her knees in suppliance bent would tremble at his power. I remember
how vaguely I used to wonder who it was that was going to grease
her knees and why she should feel called upon to have them greased
at all. Also, I shall pass over the instance of Abou Ben Adhem,
whose name led all the rest in the golden book in which the angel
was writing. Why shouldn't it have led all the rest? A man whose
front name begins with Ab, whose middle initial is B, and whose
last name begins with Ad will be found leading all the rest in any
city directory or any telephone list anywhere. Alphabetically