111: Matthew and I . . .
Little Follies, “The Fox and the Clam,” Chapter 7 begins
7
MATTHEW AND I KEPT OUR DISTANCE throughout kindergarten, but we wound up together in Mrs. Castile’s class in the first grade. We were in competition from the first day. Mrs. Castile asked me to distribute copies of Along Sunny Paths, the primer that we would be reading. Matthew looked through his copy and marched right up to Mrs. Castile’s desk with it.
“Mrs. Castile,” he said, “I don’t want to cause any trouble, but I’d rather not waste my time reading this book.”
“Oh?” said Mrs. Castile.
“Yeah,” said Matthew. “You see, I can already read.”
“Isn’t that nice!” said Mrs. Castile. “Maybe you’ll help some of the other boys and girls learn to read.”
“Maybe,” said Matthew, “but I don’t want to have to read this junk.” He tried to hand the book to her.
“Matthew,” said Mrs. Castile. “This book is not ‘junk.’ All of these books are brand new, and there are lots of nice stories in them.”
“Mrs. Castile,” said Matthew, “the stories in here are too simple. They don’t give you anything to think about. You know what I mean. Here, look at this one—‘Quack, Duck, Quack.’ That might be interesting for—”
He turned toward the classroom, looking for someone to use as an example of the “Quack, Duck, Quack” level of mental development. I was on my way back to Mrs. Castile’s desk with the extra books. Matthew pointed at me and sneered.
“—for Peter. In fact, he’ll probably love it, but it’s just too simple for me.”
“We’ll see, Matthew,” said Mrs. Castile. “For now, I’m afraid that you will have to read the stories in Along Sunny Paths with the rest of the boys and girls.”
“I knew it was no use,” said Matthew, when he passed me on his way back to his seat. “I’m supposed to read about the duckies with the rest of you nitwits.”
For a moment, I was going to hit him with my copy of Along Sunny Paths, but I thought better of it. I didn’t want to have to go through another of those apologies.
Matthew could, in fact, read very well. So could I, and four other children in Mrs. Castile’s class could read well, too. Mrs. Castile gave the six of us another book to read, Down Dark Alleys, and had us gather in the cloakroom during reading time to read and discuss the stories on our own. Each day she would appoint one of us as leader. I was the leader on the day that we read a story called “The Happy Clam.”
“Today we’re going to read a story called ‘The Happy Clam,’” I said, by way of introduction. Then, emulating Mrs. Castile, I said, “Now let’s see who will read the story for us.” I looked around, pretending to choose someone, but in fact I had already decided to choose Matthew. “Matthew,” I said, “why don’t you read for us?”
[to be continued on Monday, October 18, 2021]
In Topical Guide 111, Mark Dorset considers Reading: Learning to Read; Literature, Juvenile: Primers; and Day Jobs: Educational Publishing from this episode.
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