Ms Hamilton taught the nine-year olds. She was a bit old-fashioned. For example, she sometimes made the class learn a poem off by heart.
She would make the whole class recite the memorized poem altogether, in class. And then sometimes, she would ask a pupil to recite the poem solo.
On this particular day the nine-year old boys were terrified silly. What if Ms Hamilton asked one of them to recite the poem solo? The last line was “And let a tree sigh with her bosom over me.”
Not a single boy wanted to say the word “bosom” out loud in class.