Читать книгу Called Home: Our Inspiration--Jim Mahon - Joseph A. Byrne - Страница 8

“Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away…” so the song goes in words that I still find distasteful. Our Grade Three teacher standing at the front of the class was all business that day.

“Sally, recite Swanee River.”

To our surprise, Sally stood up and effortlessly recited every word of the song. Donna did the same. So did Marjorie and Martha after her.

With the boys, it was a different matter. Pete started it off, then Scott, then Charlie, then Jim, then me. None of us, except for Paul got past the title.

“Okay, you guys,” the teacher said, “you’re going to stay inside every recess and noon hour until you can recite Swanee River from memory. And then I want you to sing it to me.”

During the first recess, locked in the class room, we did everything we could think of, except study Swanee River. We looked at hockey cards, shuffled desks so that Sally’s was in Marjorie’s spot; Marjorie’s was in Charlie’s; Charlie’s was in Pete’s, and so on. We never even looked at Swanee River.

At noon hour, we resumed our unsupervised detentions in the classroom.

“Let’s sharpen pencils,” someone wise-owled.

“Great idea,” we replied as we made our way through the various desks, brought the pencils to the mechanical pencil sharpener and grinded away at them.

“Hey, guys,” Jim said partway through the noon hour, “let’s learn this thing and get out of here.”

We wanted to agree with him. We said things like, “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s learn it.” But we didn’t. We continued with the quiet mayhem, enjoying the sense of rebellion we were discovering.

The teacher came to the classroom about five minutes before the bell rang to mark the start of class.

“Is anyone ready to sing Swanee River yet?” she asked.

Jim put up his hand, his long hand, “I think I’m ready,” he replied, as he started to recite the song. To our surprise, he got through the whole thing.

“Good, Jim,” the teacher replied. “You’re free to go for the rest of the noon hour and for the afternoon recess.

The rest of us continued with the rebellion for a couple more days. One day, we found a whole bundle of pencils which had been left on the teacher’s desk. They were neatly wrapped with an elastic band, all of them brand new.

“Let’s sharpen them,” someone said.

“Good idea,” we all replied and got to work sharpening them. We pushed at each pencil until each one was sharpened as far down the pencil as possible, leaving short pencils, about two inches long. When we had finished the last one, we tried to bundle them and put them back where we had found them. We couldn’t bundle them with the elastic because the pencils were too short. After several tries at it, we decided we should glue them together with the white glue we had in our desks. The glue didn’t work either, so we made many small bundles with the elastic bands. We set them in the top drawer of the teacher’s desk. We thought we were heroes as we told Jim about it.

Jim listened quietly, then he said, “Come on, guys. Just learn the song so you can get out of here. Let’s build snow forts, or play ball or do something.” The next recess, we all studied hard.

“Way down upon the Swanee River, far, far away,” we repeated over and over again.

When the teacher came in at the end of recess, four of us successfully got through it. One stumbled in the middle of it, but the teacher let him off the hook. We were free to go. Everything would have ended quietly that day, except that once class began, one of the students put up his hand.

“Miss,” he said, “I need a new pencil.”

“What happened to yours?” the teacher asked impatiently.

“Someone sharpened it too much,” he said as the class room filled with laughter.

“Come up here,” she replied.

As our buddy walked toward the teacher’s desk, she pulled open the drawer on the top, left side of her desk. She shrieked as she looked in to see the multiple bundles of short pencils.

“Who did this?” she asked. “Okay, then. You will all stay in at recess until you tell me who is responsible for this.”

We were right back in detention. It was the girls who bailed us out. One of them said, “Let’s all take the blame for it. That way, no one will get punished too severely.”

Naturally, we loved the plan. The girls and Jim were going to share in the blame even though they had nothing to do with the mischief. They were willing to take the blame for it to help us out. Donna and Jim acted as spokespersons when class resumed.

“Miss,” they started, “the whole class wants to apologize for the pencils.”

“We’re all in on it and we’re sorry. We plan to make up for it by raising extra money for the poor this month.”

“Well, that’s great,” the teacher said. “I’m very pleased with you for owning up to it. You don’t have to stay in at recess tomorrow, but we will talk more about raising money for the poor.”

We were dumbfounded. We had never seen anything like it. We had never seen such a simple unravelling of a serious problem before. “Who knew it would turn out that way?” we said to each other.

“We didn’t even get the strap.”