Gregory Samples School

FOR weeks we had heard fearful tales about School. Veteran mothers sighed and said that children never came back the same. Aging maiden ladies hinted darkly but vaguely about the evil influences of the playground. The parson added to his prayers a section in behalf of Our Little Ones who were about to start school. Even the barber, between snips, clucked his tongue enigmatically.

All this saddened us. We had been looking forward to school as a sort of parental holiday. No more wheels underfoot at all hours in the dark hallways. No more jigsaw pieces, lost weeks ago, suddenly cropping out from under rugs. No more eternal queries as to why the ocean water is blue but the waves are white. What a lark school must be for parents!

Between our hopes and the gloom of our friends we vacillated in doubt. Could we rely on the teacher or should we furnish preliminary advice about conduct in the schoolroom? Should one caution about the evil of pulling little girls’ hair, or would that merely stir impulses otherwise latent?

Time put an end to these doubts, and the sun rose on the first day of school. Even then there was a last problem. Was it manly for a boy to be escorted to school by his mother? Would it brand him forever as a sissy? On the other hand, was it a task beneath a father’s dignity? Luckily, two neighbors’ children appeared, unbelievably early, to act as pilots.

The three boys left sedately, Gregory in the middle, held by each hand. They reached the corner with arms swinging free. They moved on prancing, and disappeared in the distance chasing each other wildly.

Then the clock struck eight-thirty. Half an hour more to spend on the playground, picking up oaths, no doubt.

At length nine struck. Now the teacher would be in charge, calling rolls, running through alphabets (no, the alphabet is passé), perhaps writing down numbers on the blackboard (unless numbers, too, have been abolished). Perhaps the globe would be explained — our own memories of the first day were vague. It would be too much to hope that the question of the blueness of oceans and the whiteness of waves would be posed and answered.

Nine-thirty. A good sum of information should be absorbed by this time. . . . Ten strokes of the clock. Probably there had been time for a few historical facts — with the emphasis, of course, on the social and economic life rather than on political and military manoeuvres.

Ten-thirty. Recess time, as we remembered the procedure. But no. Steps on the front porch; Gregory at the door, alive and well, and not visibly aged or blasé. School was over for the morning, over for the day — even before we’d had time to read the morning paper in peace!

Well, we could at least devote the rest of the morning to a diagnosis of the first day’s learning. ‘What did you do in school?’ we asked casually from behind the newspaper.

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Did the teacher call the roll?’

‘Call the roll — what’s that?’

‘Never mind. Did she call your name?’

‘Yes, she called all the names.’ Well, at least he had landed in the right room.

‘Then what did you do?’

‘A little girl cried, and some boys talked, and the teacher told them to be quiet so she could talk.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She explained the room to us and her desk and the things on it and our desks. And there’s a separate room to put your coats.’

‘The cloak room,’ we said, recalling the scenes of ancient rendezvous.

‘No, the coat room.’

‘The cloak room,’ we said firmly.

‘The coat room.’

We gave it up; perhaps names had changed in thirty years. ‘And what else did the teacher tell you?’

‘She told us a story.’

‘A story about what?’

‘Fairies.’

‘What about fairies?’

‘ Oh, I don’t know. Just fairies. And then she gave us a book to read.’

‘ What was its name? ’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you read it?’

‘No, you know I can’t read.’

‘Did she say what was in it?’

‘No, she said we’d read it.’

So we gave it up, retiring completely behind our newspaper. It would be useless to bring up the question of the ocean’s blueness; the ocean would n’t have been one of the things on the teacher’s desk.

We counted up the score. No visible growth in knowledge, manners, morals. On the other hand, no obvious assimilation of filth and profanity. Score at the end of the first inning: nothing-nothing.

‘Next week we’re going to have school in the afternoon too.’

Well, that would be something. We could perhaps sneak in a short round of golf. School may not be so bad after all.