That afternoon when Mr. Stone walked slowly into Room 318 we made him take a seat in the first row. One of the boys, sitting in the teacher’s chair, started off with a poem called “Farewell”; the rest of us were grouped around him. Mr. Stone sat tight-lipped, until toward the end when he slowly turned to the right and then to the left, looking at each of us in turn as if he wanted to register the picture on his mind.
When we got to the last chorus of the parody, we saw tears rolling down Mr. Stone’s high cheekbones. He got up and pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose and wiped his face. “Boys,” he began, and no one even noticed that he wasn’t calling us “men” any more, “we’re not very good, we Americans, at expressing sentiment. But I want to tell you that you have given me something I shall never forget.”