Leaving School At Eight Years Old
Leaving School At Eight Years Old
Song: “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story” composer - Peter Bilhorn
Puppet 1: I hate school!
Puppet 2: I don’t’ see why not. You have lots of friends at school.
Puppet 1: The teacher picks on me all the time. She says, “James, you need to write neater. Make those letters nice. You will need some extra practice on your numbers. I noticed you left out some. I get so tired of her picking.
Puppet 2; doesn’t sound like she is picking on you to me.
Puppet 1: How do you know? If it’s not writing then its spelling. If it’s not spelling then it’s my multiplication tables. I hate the whole mess!
Puppet 2: Maybe your mom will get you a tutor for the simmer.
Puppet 1: Yuck! She tried that last summer and I didn’t learn a thing.
Puppet 2: How hard did you try?
Puppet 1: Hey! Who are you to talk about trying? I see you didn’t win the spelling bee this time. You always win every year --- just about.
Puppet 2: My mother was sick and I had to help at home a lot. I did not get as much time to study as I am used to studying.
Puppet 1: I may want you to help me to work on those multiplication tables this summer. It will help me. Afterwards, we can go fishing.
Puppet 2: I guess, I can do that. When I go into the fourth grade next year, I need to know them better myself or I might have some problems with the new math presented.
Puppet 1: I really should be thankful I can go to school. When Peter Bilhorn was eight years old he had to quite school.
Puppet 2: That sounds great to me!
Puppet 1: How did he get out of school? Did the school officials come after him or report him?
Puppet 2: Well, this was a long time ago. Peter was born in 1865.
Puppet 1: How old would that make him today?
Puppet 2: If you subtract 1865 from 2004 it would be 139 years old.
Puppet 1: Philip had to quite school because his father died. He had to stay home and take care and help support his mother.
Puppet 2: That’s too bad.
Puppet 1: That sounds neat! NO more school. I could do whatever I wanted. I could play and ride my bike all day.
Puppet 2: You seem to be forgetting that he had to work to support his family. That means Philip did not do what he wanted to do all day long. He was making money to buy the things that his mother needed for the family.
Puppet 1: Yeah! You’re right. When he was 15 years old his family moved to Chicago. He could really sing!
Puppet 2: Where did he sing?
Puppet 1: Philip sang for concerts and his worldly friends.
Puppet 2: I wish I could sing. I just don’t have a singer’s voice.
Puppet 1: When he was 20 years old, he became a Christian. He also created an organ that folded to carry around and play for street meetings.
Puppet 2: That sounds neat! I bet it was pretty heavy to carry around all the time.
Puppet 1: It only weighed eight pounds. He wrote a total of about 2,000 gospel songs.
Puppet 2: Wow! He did write a lot of songs.
Puppet 1: One of his songs goes like this, “I will sing the wondrous story of the Christ who died for me. Sing it with the ransomed glory; sing it by the crystal sea.
Puppet 2: I’m glad you told me about Peter Bilhorn. I didn’t know that story! Even thought I may do better at spelling you sure know about composers. See! We are all different. And that is OK!
© Kidzministry.net Jeanne McIntosh 2004. All rights reserved. Reference used: 101 Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck
