Stories of Great Men

One evening she gave to Fanny Rhodes this topic--"Bacon." Poor Fannie hated essays worse than any of the others, I believe, and over this subject she fairly groaned. "As if I could!" she said. But she did. In just a month from the day the subjects were given out, the essays were to be read. Fanny was among the first to be called forward. I ought to tell you that these monthly essays were not passed in for correction until after they were read. They were to be given to the school exactly as they came from the author's hand. So Fannie began:

BACON.

The subject assigned to me for this month is bacon. I do not see how it is possible for any one to say much on such a subject. Everybody knows all that there is to say about it. It is simply the flesh of hogs, salted, or pickled, or dried.

Before she had reached the close of this sentence, the pupils were in such roars of laughter that her voice was drowned. She looked around upon us with such astonished eyes that the thing grew all the