The Folded Page by Mrs. Charles Cowman

Up in the quaint old attic, as the raindrops pattered down,
And I sat conning over a school book–dusty, work, and brown–
I came to a leaf that was folded, and marked in a childish hand,
“The teacher says to leave this now, Tis hard to understand.”

What was so hard? I wondered. I opened it with a smile.
Only to read, at the problem’s end: “We learned ‘why’ after a while.”
My tears fell thick as the raindrops then, up in the attic old,
As I thought of leaves that are ‘folded down’ till the days of our lives are told.

One was folded there with a tender hand to the sound of summer rain;
When the dust of years lies thick above, will we open this page again?
And can we write with steady hand, and on our lips a smile,
“At last our Teacher told us ‘why,’ and we learned it–after a while!"