cooked for a hundred simply doesn’t taste like food. The gravy was canned and it went over lumpy mashed potatoes. We were so hungry most of the time that we would eat anything. The menu varied from day to day, but not week to week. On Sunday, we had meat of some kind. It was usually rather stringy roast beef and we ate it with mashed potatoes and gravy. If we had a salad (none of us liked them), we had a Jell-O mold that was lime green filled with canned chopped fruit. On Monday, we had roast beef, chopped up. We called this Puss’n Boots on the Half Shell. Wednesday, we had beef stew made with dumplings of Spackle. Thursday, we had corned beef and cabbage—which none of us liked; Friday we had Tuna Fish a la King, which was a good bit more a la than King. Saturday was baked beans and ham with Jell-O mold, and Sunday the cycle began again. Only in this cycle, we had chicken and leftover chicken as the pivotal point.
Mrs. Phipps gave the cook a hard time and we found ourselves munching salads and more Jell-O, and fewer sweets were served. We all began to lose weight, which made Mrs. Phipps overjoyed. By this time, we were getting used to our togas and laurel leaves—only an occasional outburst of hysteria came up when some one fluttered to the ground and crashed on an elbow or arm. We were preparing for the May Day dance, which was to be held on the lawn if the weather permitted, and the parents were to be asked. This was to be combined with solo concerts of the students who studied violin or piano or voice privately.
Mrs. Phipps was in a wild fury of perfection. We practiced being little blades of grass blowing to and fro in the wind. We practiced being flowers peeping op on the first spring day. We simulated a Maypole, but Mother Superior said Maypoles were communistic and there wasn’t to be one. “Where she got that idea,” Mrs. Phipps asked, “I don’t know.”
The big program was planned to be in three parts: (1) Dawn and Sunset; (II) The Birth of Aurora; (III) The Marriage of Apollo.
Naturally, it rained and we had to take our program to the gym. The parents sat upstairs and after the music concert, that had lasted a good hour and a half, my father could think of nothing but a drink. I saw him pacing up and down the top row of seats in the gymnasium. Smoking was not allowed.
Mrs. Phipps brought some green turf to simulate the spring mood and we did Dawn and Sunset on it. The parents didn’t know when to clap, or whether to clap, for we waved to and fro in utter silence, oc casionally knocking into each other. I’m sure, if there had been no program, they would never have guessed it was Dawn or Sunset. At the end, we fell to the floor in a bow. There was feeble applause.
Mother Superior seemed pleased that no one under stood—it gave her a distinct edge over smart parents.
The second act, The Birth of Aurora, which seemed quite innocent to us, must have seemed anything but to the audience. When the actual scene of child labor began to take place, there were several snickers from the fathers. The audience was shocked into silence as Aurora finally got born, and there was less applause. The Marriage of Apollo must have knocked Mother Superior right off her chair—it was quite spicy, as I remember. My father laughed through the whole thing and said it was the only thing at St. Marks he’d ever seen that he wouldn’t have missed for the world.
Mrs. Phipps was last seen with Mother Superior heading for her office. Her grass was returned the following day. We started gradually going back to fuller and fuller meals, and we never did have another dancing teacher, at least not while I was at St. Marks.
Chapter Twelve: Who’s Who
It had finally arrived. The last day of the school year. Everyone had that unmistakable, traumatic feeling— a combination of relief from duty and pressure with a nagging feeling of being totally displaced. We spent the entire second term waiting for June so that we’d
Mrs. Phipps gave the cook a hard time and we found ourselves munching salads and more Jell-O, and fewer sweets were served. We all began to lose weight, which made Mrs. Phipps overjoyed. By this time, we were getting used to our togas and laurel leaves—only an occasional outburst of hysteria came up when some one fluttered to the ground and crashed on an elbow or arm. We were preparing for the May Day dance, which was to be held on the lawn if the weather permitted, and the parents were to be asked. This was to be combined with solo concerts of the students who studied violin or piano or voice privately.
Mrs. Phipps was in a wild fury of perfection. We practiced being little blades of grass blowing to and fro in the wind. We practiced being flowers peeping op on the first spring day. We simulated a Maypole, but Mother Superior said Maypoles were communistic and there wasn’t to be one. “Where she got that idea,” Mrs. Phipps asked, “I don’t know.”
The big program was planned to be in three parts: (1) Dawn and Sunset; (II) The Birth of Aurora; (III) The Marriage of Apollo.
Naturally, it rained and we had to take our program to the gym. The parents sat upstairs and after the music concert, that had lasted a good hour and a half, my father could think of nothing but a drink. I saw him pacing up and down the top row of seats in the gymnasium. Smoking was not allowed.
Mrs. Phipps brought some green turf to simulate the spring mood and we did Dawn and Sunset on it. The parents didn’t know when to clap, or whether to clap, for we waved to and fro in utter silence, oc casionally knocking into each other. I’m sure, if there had been no program, they would never have guessed it was Dawn or Sunset. At the end, we fell to the floor in a bow. There was feeble applause.
Mother Superior seemed pleased that no one under stood—it gave her a distinct edge over smart parents.
The second act, The Birth of Aurora, which seemed quite innocent to us, must have seemed anything but to the audience. When the actual scene of child labor began to take place, there were several snickers from the fathers. The audience was shocked into silence as Aurora finally got born, and there was less applause. The Marriage of Apollo must have knocked Mother Superior right off her chair—it was quite spicy, as I remember. My father laughed through the whole thing and said it was the only thing at St. Marks he’d ever seen that he wouldn’t have missed for the world.
Mrs. Phipps was last seen with Mother Superior heading for her office. Her grass was returned the following day. We started gradually going back to fuller and fuller meals, and we never did have another dancing teacher, at least not while I was at St. Marks.
Chapter Twelve: Who’s Who
It had finally arrived. The last day of the school year. Everyone had that unmistakable, traumatic feeling— a combination of relief from duty and pressure with a nagging feeling of being totally displaced. We spent the entire second term waiting for June so that we’d
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