When the teacher gets cross, and her blue eyes gets black,
And the pencil comes down on the desk with a whack,
We chillen all sit up straight in a line,
As if we had rulers instead of a spine,
And it’s scary to cough, and it a’n’t safe to grin,
When the teacher gets cross, and the dimples goes in.
When the teacher gets cross, the tables get mixed,
The ones and the twos begins to play tricks.
The pluses and minuses is just little smears,
When the cry babies cry their slates full of tears,
And the figgers won’t add,—but just act up like sin,
When the teacher gets cross, and the dimples goes in.
When the teacher gets cross, the reading gets bad.
The lines jingle round till the’ chillen is sad.
And Billy boy puffs and gets red in the face,
As if he and the lesson were running a race,
Until she hollers out, “Next!” as sharp as a pin,
When the teacher gets cross, and the dimples goes in.
When the teacher gets good, her smile is so bright,
That the tables gets straight, and the reading gets right.
The pluses and minuses comes trooping along,
And the figgers add up and stop being wrong,
And we chillen would like, but we dassent, to shout,
When the teacher gets good, and the dimples comes out.
