Read "No Talent, and Phil's Pansies" by Lucy Ellen Guernsey online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
ON Sunday morning Phil set out for school dressed in his new clothes, with a clean shirt on, and his face and hair polished with extra care. He had his Bible in his hand, and in his pocket Horace Maberly's knife, which he meant to give him after school. He was quite early, and finding that nobody had come to church but the sexton, he chose a shady place behind the cedar hedge and sat down to look at his lesson once more. As he was thus sitting, he heard voices on the other side of the hedge.
"You ought to have heard him swear," said a voice which he knew to be Horace's. "The way he ripped out the big words! I only wish Miss Isabel had been there to hear her pattern boy."