I was a pretty good kid: doing what I was told, getting passing grades, playing hard and not causing too much trouble for those around me. In an old one-room schoolhouse our teacher, Miss Applebloom, would give us lessons in Mathematics and English. My favorite part of study was when she would read aloud to us, either poetry or prose, her rich matronly voice filled the room, enchanting our imaginations with far off lands and wonders we couldn’t help but dream about. Being rural children, the idea of a skyscraper was mind boggling. She would tell us of things so fantastic, such as pyramids and jungles that we, knowing adults incapable of lying, still had a hard time believing.
She was in the middle of reciting “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg one day, as I gazed out of the window entranced by his powerful words: “Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding.” Perfect… without clouded thought to impede their flow, they tumbled and set sail, floating out into a glorious blue Nebraska sky. I sighed, wondering how on earth the poem could continue to greater heights. It was then, in this rapture of words, a voice cleaved through.
“Steve, do you have better things to do than listen to the poem?” My head spun away from the window into the stern eyes of my irritated teacher. “I think if you do, you should take the appropriate chair to do it in.” she continued. Stunned for the moment, I froze in my seat unable to move. I wanted to recite those powerful words back to her as some kind of proof, but they had flown away, the spell broken.
“Close your mouth and move it young man.” Hesitating, trying to bring back the phrase, I tried again to lift myself but the magic had flown. Lowering my eyes toward the wooden desk, I wished passionately that the “time out” chair had never been introduced as a form of punishment. It was humiliating to sit in, unlike the swift bite of the willow switch which stung, but was easily forgotten. I mustered rising, unable to look at her. Walking to the back wall, I put the dunce cone on and sat down in the seat facing the corner, away from the snickering class and knowledge. “Children, now that Steve knows his place, shall we continue?”
Try as I might, the rest of the poem had been replaced with a white washed wall, hard and unforgiving. There I sat for the duration of the afternoon, till about an hour before we were to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve one more lesson. Remove your hat and go to the front blackboard.” Doing as instructed, I took up a piece of chalk and waited for her assignment. “I will take the seat when told.” she said, “now start writing and don’t stop until I say.”
Once again my giggling classmates added to the punishment. I started digging into the work on the top left-hand corner, at arm’s length above my head; my embarrassingly childish cursive made even worse by the height. Slowly, deliberately, the curves sounded against the slate, punctuated by the two dots, one above ‘will’, and the other to end the sentence. Dust from the chalk floated against light from the window, but I dared not turn from its source. One line at a time I worked my way down the board. Stepping to my right I continued, reaching up and working downward. Partially through the fourth column, school was dismissed. I knew to continue however, as was the normal way of such a punishment, until she was ready and would signal me to stop.
Outside I could hear the laughter of the other kids running about in the schoolyard under the same expansive sky that I had looked on earlier. Longing for release, I doubled my efforts to write neatly hoping she would notice. Yet the lines only seemed to get smaller without any discernible improvement to my penmanship. This was frustrating because my next thought was that she wasn’t going to let me leave until the board was full.
I could hear Miss Applebloom ready herself, straightening up her desk, putting on her jacket and fishing the school key from her purse. Out in the yard came loud bickering and one of the girls screaming, “You bring that back, it’s mine!” Heavy clanking of heels against the hard wooden floor moved towards the door. There was the rapid patter of shoes outside running away from school and an angry tired teacher, then silence.
My ears strained to hear the returning flutter of her starched dress, but there was nothing save the sound of the wind and a boastful meadowlark. I sniffled loudly, my nose running from the chalk dust. Continuing to the board’s end, I stopped briefly and looked about at the empty desks with the little disappearing daylight that still managed to peek inside. Putting the chalk down I stretched my arms and neck. My back was sore and hand cramped. The door stood open as it had been left and the one faint light bulb had started to collect curious victims. How odd I thought as a moth with wings singed fell, that sometimes we’ve no time to learn lessons before being cut down.
Looking back around at the full board, I noticed flaws in the topmost lines, now more readily apparent than when writing them. Clearly my attempts to improve my writing could be seen, smaller and sloppier in comparison to those where I didn’t try as hard. I stepped back a few steps and looked again. Counting the lines, I stopped lost midway. Again trying to count them, I counted by five’s but once more lost my place. Angry, I picked up a new piece of chalk and walked to the board on the side wall and reaching up started once more to write. After the first line, stepping back, I grabbed the eraser and furiously cleaned its surface. Pulling a desk over, I stood upon the chair and wrote carefully and relaxed the seven words, and got down to examine the results. Looking from board to board I could see a difference, ever so slight in my best work at the first with this one line on the new board.
Back up on the chair I wrote most comfortably within reach. Then down to move the desk over, I stepped up to continue the column. Up on the chair… move the desk… again. I repeated this procedure over and over till once again the board was full. Comparing the two boards I could see what vast improvement I’d made. Looking around to the third and final board I once again stretched my self out and moved a desk into position.
Working into the night, the sounds of birds were slowly replaced by crickets and the occasional moth smashing into the light. When I ran out of chalkboard space, I took the two Big Chief tablets from my desk and started on them. When they filled, I placed them on Miss Applebloom’s desk. Again I grabbed the chalk, this time starting in on the floor. Somewhere towards the middle of the room I had the notion of going home for supper, but my folks were visiting a great aunt and wouldn’t be home till very late, so there wasn’t going to be a hot meal, hug or kiss goodnight anyway. Even if they had gotten home early, they’d think I’d have slipped off to sleep in the barn again. With stomach growling I pulled out the remains of a half-eaten apple from my desk to finish off. Going back to work… I don’t remember when… I finally fell asleep before filling up the floor.
Waking very early to the warmth of sun on my face, I went to the outhouse and then returned to the classroom. Picking up the chalk, I finished the last few lines needed.
The day and fresh air called to me, so I left the room and started in on the sidewalk. Seven words, two clicks, one over ‘will’ the other to end it. I had almost filled the walkway when I heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind me. I turned my head around to see a shocked stare on Miss Applebloom's face. Turning again towards the sidewalk I filled in another line. By this time the perfection of my writing danced, fluidly bringing the words to life. Rushing by me, I heard her stop suddenly at the door of the school. I completed another five lines before her shadow dimmed the sunlight.
“Steve, have you been here all night?” I just nodded and wrote. The silence stopped me a couple lines further on. Looking up into her eyes I could see confusion as she tried to recall her own words from the previous day.
“I told you not to stop until I said so, and you didn’t?” Again I nodded and wrote. The silence loomed above me, this time I didn’t look.
“Steve… you may stop now.” Halting mid sentence and standing up, I placed the chalk into her outstretched hand. Finding the sky, squinting at the radiant sun, my eyes fell following the words back to the schoolhouse and back at the blank face before me.
Searching about, finding a stick on the ground I knelt down to pick it up. She watched as I wrote in the dirt:
Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding.
She seemed older to me now and worn down, a weariness I’d not noticed before. With the last of Sandburg’s words in mind, I drug my foot across the knowing earth and walked back into school.
She was in the middle of reciting “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg one day, as I gazed out of the window entranced by his powerful words: “Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding.” Perfect… without clouded thought to impede their flow, they tumbled and set sail, floating out into a glorious blue Nebraska sky. I sighed, wondering how on earth the poem could continue to greater heights. It was then, in this rapture of words, a voice cleaved through.
“Steve, do you have better things to do than listen to the poem?” My head spun away from the window into the stern eyes of my irritated teacher. “I think if you do, you should take the appropriate chair to do it in.” she continued. Stunned for the moment, I froze in my seat unable to move. I wanted to recite those powerful words back to her as some kind of proof, but they had flown away, the spell broken.
“Close your mouth and move it young man.” Hesitating, trying to bring back the phrase, I tried again to lift myself but the magic had flown. Lowering my eyes toward the wooden desk, I wished passionately that the “time out” chair had never been introduced as a form of punishment. It was humiliating to sit in, unlike the swift bite of the willow switch which stung, but was easily forgotten. I mustered rising, unable to look at her. Walking to the back wall, I put the dunce cone on and sat down in the seat facing the corner, away from the snickering class and knowledge. “Children, now that Steve knows his place, shall we continue?”
Try as I might, the rest of the poem had been replaced with a white washed wall, hard and unforgiving. There I sat for the duration of the afternoon, till about an hour before we were to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve one more lesson. Remove your hat and go to the front blackboard.” Doing as instructed, I took up a piece of chalk and waited for her assignment. “I will take the seat when told.” she said, “now start writing and don’t stop until I say.”
Once again my giggling classmates added to the punishment. I started digging into the work on the top left-hand corner, at arm’s length above my head; my embarrassingly childish cursive made even worse by the height. Slowly, deliberately, the curves sounded against the slate, punctuated by the two dots, one above ‘will’, and the other to end the sentence. Dust from the chalk floated against light from the window, but I dared not turn from its source. One line at a time I worked my way down the board. Stepping to my right I continued, reaching up and working downward. Partially through the fourth column, school was dismissed. I knew to continue however, as was the normal way of such a punishment, until she was ready and would signal me to stop.
Outside I could hear the laughter of the other kids running about in the schoolyard under the same expansive sky that I had looked on earlier. Longing for release, I doubled my efforts to write neatly hoping she would notice. Yet the lines only seemed to get smaller without any discernible improvement to my penmanship. This was frustrating because my next thought was that she wasn’t going to let me leave until the board was full.
I could hear Miss Applebloom ready herself, straightening up her desk, putting on her jacket and fishing the school key from her purse. Out in the yard came loud bickering and one of the girls screaming, “You bring that back, it’s mine!” Heavy clanking of heels against the hard wooden floor moved towards the door. There was the rapid patter of shoes outside running away from school and an angry tired teacher, then silence.
My ears strained to hear the returning flutter of her starched dress, but there was nothing save the sound of the wind and a boastful meadowlark. I sniffled loudly, my nose running from the chalk dust. Continuing to the board’s end, I stopped briefly and looked about at the empty desks with the little disappearing daylight that still managed to peek inside. Putting the chalk down I stretched my arms and neck. My back was sore and hand cramped. The door stood open as it had been left and the one faint light bulb had started to collect curious victims. How odd I thought as a moth with wings singed fell, that sometimes we’ve no time to learn lessons before being cut down.
Looking back around at the full board, I noticed flaws in the topmost lines, now more readily apparent than when writing them. Clearly my attempts to improve my writing could be seen, smaller and sloppier in comparison to those where I didn’t try as hard. I stepped back a few steps and looked again. Counting the lines, I stopped lost midway. Again trying to count them, I counted by five’s but once more lost my place. Angry, I picked up a new piece of chalk and walked to the board on the side wall and reaching up started once more to write. After the first line, stepping back, I grabbed the eraser and furiously cleaned its surface. Pulling a desk over, I stood upon the chair and wrote carefully and relaxed the seven words, and got down to examine the results. Looking from board to board I could see a difference, ever so slight in my best work at the first with this one line on the new board.
Back up on the chair I wrote most comfortably within reach. Then down to move the desk over, I stepped up to continue the column. Up on the chair… move the desk… again. I repeated this procedure over and over till once again the board was full. Comparing the two boards I could see what vast improvement I’d made. Looking around to the third and final board I once again stretched my self out and moved a desk into position.
Working into the night, the sounds of birds were slowly replaced by crickets and the occasional moth smashing into the light. When I ran out of chalkboard space, I took the two Big Chief tablets from my desk and started on them. When they filled, I placed them on Miss Applebloom’s desk. Again I grabbed the chalk, this time starting in on the floor. Somewhere towards the middle of the room I had the notion of going home for supper, but my folks were visiting a great aunt and wouldn’t be home till very late, so there wasn’t going to be a hot meal, hug or kiss goodnight anyway. Even if they had gotten home early, they’d think I’d have slipped off to sleep in the barn again. With stomach growling I pulled out the remains of a half-eaten apple from my desk to finish off. Going back to work… I don’t remember when… I finally fell asleep before filling up the floor.
Waking very early to the warmth of sun on my face, I went to the outhouse and then returned to the classroom. Picking up the chalk, I finished the last few lines needed.
The day and fresh air called to me, so I left the room and started in on the sidewalk. Seven words, two clicks, one over ‘will’ the other to end it. I had almost filled the walkway when I heard the sound of a throat being cleared behind me. I turned my head around to see a shocked stare on Miss Applebloom's face. Turning again towards the sidewalk I filled in another line. By this time the perfection of my writing danced, fluidly bringing the words to life. Rushing by me, I heard her stop suddenly at the door of the school. I completed another five lines before her shadow dimmed the sunlight.
“Steve, have you been here all night?” I just nodded and wrote. The silence stopped me a couple lines further on. Looking up into her eyes I could see confusion as she tried to recall her own words from the previous day.
“I told you not to stop until I said so, and you didn’t?” Again I nodded and wrote. The silence loomed above me, this time I didn’t look.
“Steve… you may stop now.” Halting mid sentence and standing up, I placed the chalk into her outstretched hand. Finding the sky, squinting at the radiant sun, my eyes fell following the words back to the schoolhouse and back at the blank face before me.
Searching about, finding a stick on the ground I knelt down to pick it up. She watched as I wrote in the dirt:
Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding.
She seemed older to me now and worn down, a weariness I’d not noticed before. With the last of Sandburg’s words in mind, I drug my foot across the knowing earth and walked back into school.
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