We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
FROM SIX TO SIXTEEN 35
When the tuba was on the floor and the immediate operator was playing it, Professor McNabb might be standing at the very desk of the operator without recognizing him as the guilty party.
"What is that noise?" he would ask. "Do you know what is making that noise?" The guilty pupil would deny any knowledge of it.
I have never understood just what there was about the acoustics of the room that made it so hard to find out where the sound of that infernal thing came from. It is true that Professor McNabb did not hear too well and that he had a kind of nervous trouble which, when he was intent, caused him to nod his head repeatedly. During the days when the tuba was in operation the vigor of his nodding almost broke his neck! There were breathless seconds when he came pretty close to the current culprit, but when things got too hot for the operator his foot would quietly push the instrument to the boy in front or behind, and the recipient would take over and carry on the music.
Some of the class finally became ashamed of themselves, realizing that it was wrecking Professor McNabb— and also, I guess, because we began to be afraid. We had a way of getting cold feet when we really got close to a showdown.
Out of school we had plenty of legitimate fun of our own manufacture. As one of our best commentators has noted, "the American of the Nineties had the capacity for being entertained by sheer fun, which is an expression of high spirits and wholesome relation to life." Almost all the young people of Sullivan knew each other, and it was easy to organize a dance, a picnic, or an informal tennis tournament. And there were always our bicycles— still a bit of a thrill to all of us— so we got a real kick out of our bicycle club and its meetings and tours.
I never sang in the church choir; none of the boys did. We were allowed to participate with the girls in Sunday school and in the Christmas Eve celebrations held at the church, and to distribute the little mosquito-netting bags containing an orange and some varicolored candy. On those occasions the boys could go along with the singing, but otherwise they were of no consequence in the music of the church. This would have made no difference anyway so far as I was concerned. To remember the words, I claim considerable ability; to carry a tune, none whatever.
However, I early became interested in the choir. There was a girl in it, a little older than myself, but a classmate. Her name was Grace Nicoson: she was the stepdaughter of the Sunday-school superintendent, Captain Crawford, and was very pretty. As I was aspiring to a better acquaintance, luck played into my hands in the best Horatio Alger tradition.
We used to have Sunday-school picnics on the banks of the Wabash near a little town called Merom— a long nine-mile horse-and-buggy ride