The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #1)

by Robert A. Caro

She started the younger students on spelling bees and “ ’rithmetic matches,” which gave them their first chance to stand up in front of an audience. Then they progressed to “declamation” of poems, to “pantomimes and dialogues,” then to debates, and, finally, the high-school pupils would have to speak extemporaneously on subjects they would study in the books, pamphlets and magazines Rebekah ordered from the extension library at the University of Texas in Austin. The girls felt keenly that they were “country”—that they lacked social graces—so Rebekah expanded the curriculum to include dancing: fifty years and more later, one of her pupils, asked what kind of dancing, suddenly became lost in reverie and then, all at once, began humming, very softly, with her wrinkled old face smiling in reminiscence, “Little red wagon painted blue, little red wagon painted blue, little red wagon painted blue, skip to m’Lou, my darling.”