In the center of town, which was probably the wettest part of town, I stopped in front of a church to read the bulletin board, mostly because the featured numerals, white on black, had caught my attention but partly because, after three years in the Army, I'd become addicted to reading bulletin boards.

At three-fifteen, the board stated, there would be children's-choir practice. I looked at my wristwatch, then back at the board.

A sheet of paper was tacked up, listing the names of the children expected to attend practice. I stood in the rain and read all the names, then entered the church.

A dozen or so adults were among the pews, several of them bearing pairs of small-size rubbers, soles up, in their laps. I passed along and sat down in the front row.

On the rostrum, seated in three compact rows of auditorium chairs, were about twenty children, mostly girls, ranging in age from about seven to thirteen.

At the moment, their choir coach, an enormous woman in tweeds, was advising them to open their mouths wider when they sang.

Had anyone, she asked, ever heard of a little dickeybird that dared to sing his charming song without first opening his little beak wide, wide, wide?

Apparently nobody ever had. She was given a steady, opaque look.

She went on to say that she wanted all her children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just mouth them, like silly-billy parrots.

She then blew a note on her pitch-pipe, and the children, like so many underage weightlifters, raised their hymnbooks.