"But dear me! As soon as I opened my mouth and began to speak it was
just as though the bottom had opened and let everything fall out of
everything. All I could think of was the first two lines:
"'The thunder rolls,
The lightning flashes!'
"Over and over again I repeated those lines, and I could not get past
them. The teacher looked sorry for me, and some of the boys and girls
began to laugh. This made it all the worse for me, and my face grew red.
Over and over again I told about the thunder and lightning, and at last
I made up my mind I'd have to do something, or else go to my seat as
some of the other girls had done, without finishing. And I didn't want
to do that.
"So I braced my feet on the platform, and then I stood straight up in
front of the whole school and fairly shouted out this verse:
"'The thunder rolls,
The lightning flashes!
It broke Grandmother's teapot
All to smashes!'
"That's what I gave as my first recitation," went on Mrs. Brown, when
Bunny and Sue had finished laughing. "How those words about my
grandmother's teapot popped into my head I don't know. I don't even
remember my grandmother's teapot, though I suppose she had one. But
that's the verse I recited. And you should have heard the children
laugh!"
"What did the teacher say?" asked Bunny.
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