sed
for not putting your fingers in the gravy and spotting up your shirt
front! I wager that old Prioress was a stick. I shouldn't want her on
our basket ball team. There isn't a sensible woman in the whole of
Chaucer so far as I can see. (_the curtain at the front of the
bookcase begins to shake slightly, becoming more violent as the_
JUNIOR _continues_) The Wife of Bath was a regular Mormon, five
husbands, that's what she had, and she wore red stockings. Such taste!

SENIOR. (_rises and goes to_ JUNIOR) Laurine, don't talk so much.
Come help us decide between dill pickle and strawberry jam, we can't
have both.

SOPHOMORE. Laurine can't help talking. Her whole class does it.

JUNIOR. And what about your class, Miss? And the angelic Seniors? They
never talk, do they. Thank Goodness, we're not like that old patient
Griselda in Chaucer. She was afraid to open her head.

FRESHMAN. I think you know a lot about Chaucer. I never will remember
all those names.

JUNIOR. Oh, there are a lot more of them. One was a silly girl named
Emily. She didn't do anything but have "hair a yard long I guess" and
for that she had two lovers. I am going to get a hair tonic. That's
how silly men were in Chaucer's day, before they learned how to play
football, or had fraternities.

SOPHOMORE. Oh, girls, if you had only seen the hero in the matinee
yesterday. He was simply grand! And he had such pretty curly hair.

(_The bell rings_.)

SENIOR. I know I could think of lots more things to eat if I only had
more time.

SOPHOMORE. Well, come on, I have to go to History. (_she starts out_)

FRESHMAN. Wait for me.

(_Exeunt_ SENIOR, SOPHOMORE _and_ FRESHMAN.)

JUNIOR. Here's where I die. Where's that hateful book? It won't do any
good to lose it, there are a dozen more copies in the bookcase. (_sings_)

"Hang Geof Chaucer on a sour apple tree,
Hang Geof Chaucer on a sour apple tree,
Hang Geof Chaucer on a sour apple tree,
Our teacher marks us on!"
(_exit as she sings_)

(_The curtain in front of the bookcase shakes more violently than before.
Then from behind the curtain comes the voice of the_ WIFE OF BATH.)

WIFE. Ladies, I prithee harkneth for the best.
Can Chaucer's children swich words hear, and rest?
This is the point, to speken short and pleyn,
We, one and all, were used with desdeyn.