Reciting Poetry in Grade School

            Our third grade teacher, Miss Virginia Hay, read poetry to us and had us memorize and recite poems—all 52 of us.  All of us learned “Trees” and one I remember part of:

                        The gingham dog and the calico cat

                        Side beside on the table sat

                        It was half past twelve and what do you think

                        Not one nor t’other had slept a wink.

            Mother often told about her teacher having them recite poetry.

            Her teacher called on Mother one day when Mother said “I don’t have any poem today.”

            Her teacher, “Oh, I’m sure you must have something to recite.”

            Mother:         “The thunder roared and the lightening flashed

                                     And killed my big fat hog at last.”

            Her teacher:  “You are right, you didn’t.”

                                                                        --Lenora Perkins

Lisle House

            Until Boone Avenue was widened or New Boonesboro Road came into being, the red brick—now gray—Lisle House at 610 had a porch across the front where bearded Pa in hat coat & tie sat in a rocker with his cane beside him while grandchildren played in the swing or danced and sang “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush” which was beside the porch & looked more like a tree than a bush.

            Just inside the front door in a room with brown wicker furniture, and over the sofa hung a framed embroidered English cottage garden scene, Ma, Aunt Callie, dog Trixie and Kitty came to greet us.

            The parlor had a piano that children banged on, and a three tiered table full of 1 inch small dogs, cats, cows, chickens, shell flamingos, those three stuck-together-side-monkeys:  see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil and many other doodads for Aunt Callie to clean—all those items brought to Ma along by friends.

            Past the dining room, up the stairs by the picture perfect bath, to Uncle Claiborne’s room where the wind in the windows made whooo, wheeeeee, wheeee and down the two landing stairs with a log banister for sliding down if you got a chance.

            At Ma’s the table was always set with white cloth, those blue and white dishes—which were probably copies of the famous Blue Willow China—and these given by service stations or banks, knife, fork, and spoon to the right of the plate, and when meal finished, table reset with white cloth over.

            Ma was rolling out flaky biscuits with her huge rolling pin, dinner was on, and this 4 year old girl said, “Ma, I’ll give you “C”” and promptly put the forks to the left of the plates.

            In the breakfast, on the ice box was always a cookie jar with bought cookies and the table set the same way.

            Down to the bleached white milk room where Ma/Aunt Callie made slice-able cottage cheese, churned & molded butter, the walls had nails and newspapers punched all over like wallpaper.  Only once before had I seen nails on the wall where a dear—to me—family, way out in the country from Irvine, had taken me home with them & their kitchen was “papered” with “funny” papers.

            By the red meat house, through the long grape arbor to check out the privy all whitewashed—even the lids.

            With Ma to the little red chicken house with squeaking yellow baby chicks, the white glass eggs to put under the hens to fool them into “settin’” and to gather the eggs in that square egg basket.

            Across the field for a quick visit with Cousin Essie and it was time to go home.

            Last one to the green Hudson has to sit in the middle.

                                                                        --Lenora Perkins