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Little Wit, issue 5, August 1940
page 2
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Schoolmarm Ah, for the days of the old, almost ungraded, village school! One instructor in reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic often intrudes on my dreams during the wee, small hours. She was a believer in student leadership. And while the problem-children ruled the class she fixed her eyes, for half-hours at a time, upon some novel inaccurately depicting the perils of the city. Hers was a queenly figure, with hair dressed high, skirt hung low, and waist-line fantastically small (such as corset-makers have been vainly trying to foist upon us again). And yet the pince-nez perched before her eyes contrasted sharply with a dirndl (tho she called it something else) not overly clean. Once, after she had worn the same dress for a month, a precocious bookie solicited bets on how soon it would fall off her. But she did not even notice when one of the drawstrings burst. A monster safety pin held it up the rest of the semester. In one activity she led, not followed. She sang in chorus with a gusto unknown to the blackest endman [?]. Many's the time that her baton tapping on my bean aroused me from untimely slumber. How she pranced and clapped to give us blockheads a sense of rhythm! She could read verse, also at odd seasons. One dark, snowy afternoon she went over to the window and began reciting Snow-Bound. She got half-way thru with it before she broke down and wept silently. We knew without her telling us that she was remembering her own childhood. A love-interest was not entirely lacking. She had one beau, with narrow chest and full waist, who used to bring her small, white boxes evidently not devoid of content. Of course he did not interrupt her classroom duties, but the whole village, in the person of her landlady, watched every rendezvous. For a week after one of his visits, she would be popping bon-bons into her mouth at two-or-three hour intervals. Half the class adjudged her stingy, while the other half averred she took dope. Years after she taught me, she retired without pension to live alone. Just last week a letter from home informed me that she is now a patient in the Sacred Heart sanitarium. CATHERINE HINICKLE Green Hell Southern California: Where a Canadian escapes to . . . and wishes he had led a better life. -- R.W.F. 2 August 1940 LITTLE WIT
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Schoolmarm Ah, for the days of the old, almost ungraded, village school! One instructor in reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic often intrudes on my dreams during the wee, small hours. She was a believer in student leadership. And while the problem-children ruled the class she fixed her eyes, for half-hours at a time, upon some novel inaccurately depicting the perils of the city. Hers was a queenly figure, with hair dressed high, skirt hung low, and waist-line fantastically small (such as corset-makers have been vainly trying to foist upon us again). And yet the pince-nez perched before her eyes contrasted sharply with a dirndl (tho she called it something else) not overly clean. Once, after she had worn the same dress for a month, a precocious bookie solicited bets on how soon it would fall off her. But she did not even notice when one of the drawstrings burst. A monster safety pin held it up the rest of the semester. In one activity she led, not followed. She sang in chorus with a gusto unknown to the blackest endman [?]. Many's the time that her baton tapping on my bean aroused me from untimely slumber. How she pranced and clapped to give us blockheads a sense of rhythm! She could read verse, also at odd seasons. One dark, snowy afternoon she went over to the window and began reciting Snow-Bound. She got half-way thru with it before she broke down and wept silently. We knew without her telling us that she was remembering her own childhood. A love-interest was not entirely lacking. She had one beau, with narrow chest and full waist, who used to bring her small, white boxes evidently not devoid of content. Of course he did not interrupt her classroom duties, but the whole village, in the person of her landlady, watched every rendezvous. For a week after one of his visits, she would be popping bon-bons into her mouth at two-or-three hour intervals. Half the class adjudged her stingy, while the other half averred she took dope. Years after she taught me, she retired without pension to live alone. Just last week a letter from home informed me that she is now a patient in the Sacred Heart sanitarium. CATHERINE HINICKLE Green Hell Southern California: Where a Canadian escapes to . . . and wishes he had led a better life. -- R.W.F. 2 August 1940 LITTLE WIT
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