was supposed to impart to the boys and girls of from seven to
twelve a rudimentary knowledge of the three R's and of geography.
In the first two R's, "readin' and 'ritin'," Miss Thompson was
proficient. She wrote a flowery Spencerian, which was beautifully
"shaded" and looked well on the blackboard, and reading was the
dissipation of her spare moments. The third "R," 'rithmetic, she
loathed.

Youth, even at the ages of from seven to twelve, is only too
proficient in learning to evade hard work. The fact that Teacher
took no delight in traveling the prosaic highways of addition,
multiplication and division, but could be easily lured to wander
the flowery lanes of romantic fiction, was soon grasped by the
downstairs pupils. The hour set for recitation by the first class
in arithmetic was often and often monopolized by a hold-over of the
first class in reading, while Miss Floretta, artfully spurred by
questions asked by the older scholars, rhapsodized on the beauties
of James Fenimore Cooper's "Uncas," or Dickens' "Little Nell," or
Scott's "Ellen." Some of us antiques, then tow-headed little
shavers in the front seats, can still remember Miss Floretta's
rendition of the lines:

"And Saxon--I am Roderick Dhu!"

The extremely genteel, not to say ladylike, elocution of the
Highland chief and the indescribable rising inflection and emphasis
on the "I."

These literary rambles had their inevitable effect, an effect
noted, after a time, and called to the attention of the school