Latin School of Chicago - Sigillum Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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I PREFER MY DESERT ISLANDS WITH BOOKS There is a great deal of truth in the old saying that you never miss a thing till its gone. Being able to read and having things to read are taken for granted today. You could not conceive of a day's passing without your scanning the newspapers, glancing through magazines and books, taking in the meanings of countless advertise- ments at gulp-glances, so accustomed are you to spending one or two hours of each day doing this, even though you may profess to read very little. Yet I, who spend much more of my day than this in reading, have known three times in my life when I did absolutely none. Two times I was physically unable to. The third time was the worst of all. I had nothing to readl ln the summer of 1935, mother, with her usual impetuosity, decided that I had had quite too much city and that I must go to the country. Accordingly, she dashed around and found, as she said, a charming farm owned by a lovely, cultured, even musical family, where I could spend the summer. Immediately she packed me off. Indeed, I was quite agreeable to being so hastily gotten rid of, as I was filled with dreams of spending glorious, sun-drenched days, lying on an emerald green meadow, chewing a straw from the near-by strawstack, close at hand a good book, of being able, whenever I was so inclined, to go over to the barn, select a horse, and canter off to parts unknown, of eating the farmer's fare, which, if reports were true, had cake, several kinds of pie, and cookies, all for one dessert, or having the privilege of living with this remarkable family, and, of course, of being out of the range of the parental eye. I cannot say with complete truthfulness that our life as farmers was the exact antithesis of what I had pictured, but it was entirely different. As is so often the case, we had imagined in such detail how Arcadian farm-life would be, that, when I met just the farm-life minus the Arcadia, I hardly recognized it. But I shall pass over the many disappointments of that vacation in order to bring to the fore the main one. I shall not dwell on how that was the summer of the terrible drought, which had Washington pulling its hair, and the worried farmers pulling anybody's they could lay hands on, on how I wouldn't drink the sweet, fresh milk because it was different from my customary Vitamin A , and on how breakfast was too big with its fried fish, potato pancakes and flapiacks, while supper was too small with its solitary blue bowls of bread and milk. Nor shall I speak of how the hours of wandering through scorched corn-fields and petting the eleven cats formed a day easily confused with an eternity. lncidentally, the familyfs musicalness was more or less one of my mother's exag- gerations. papa farmer was the church soloist, which office entailed limbering up his voice every Saturday night to get out of it the nasal twang from calling the cows. Mama farmer had gone to a jerkwater musical college and that was about as much good as it did her. To be the high school pianist was Sister farmers ambition and she furthered it by practicing every single morning, from six-thirty to nine o'cIock, the majestic strains of Upomp and Circumstancen. Brother farmer had a thin, sweet soprano and could render endearingly, 'fl-lome, I-lome Un the Range . It was nine o'clock in the morning and the twenty-fifth hour of my vacation on the farm. I, nostalgic, vaguely queasy from the strange water, and having done all those things a green horn does upon first arriving at a farm, was wandering forlornly around the house. In the back of my mind, though I was totally unconscious of it, was the desire to pick up a book or magazine, and read a little. No doubt I was expecting to come upon some reading material casually, for in our house one can hardly sit down without first lifting up an open book. As I was alone in the house, the rest of the family being out in the summer kitchen, I decided to begin my private search for a book or magazine. In vain I looked in the front parlour and the second parlour. No books were to be had in the dining room. I was about to inspect the kitchen. urged on by my unsatisfied desire when papa Farmer stomped in and said, Hcmon into the study, and relax. I could feel myself brighten- ing visibly. Come into the study? Would II Ah, the study. Beautiful-sounding word when spoken. In it-Booksl lvlagazinesl Papersl This would be more like itl I-Ie led the way into a little room off the dining room. I followed expectantly. Searching the study eagerly, but all the time keeping my eyes open for secret panels 66

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ll.llTTElBG'M3Y SECTUQN Preserved For posteruty ore these stories poems omcl essoys written by pupils of the school from the Senior Class to the Fifth erode 65

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or trapdoorswrhow did l know this exceptional family didn't consider a book more precious than gold, and was hiding it accordingly?--gradually, but conclusively, l realized that in the entire room, ironically called Hstudyn, were no books, no magazines, no papers, no pamphlets, no circulars, in short, no pieces of paper with words printed thereuponl Standing there, l realized how it must feel to be a convicted man, who before being sent to jail, imagines how it will feel to be behind the bars, thinks he has steeled himself for their horror, but, when he actually is behind them, suffers the real despair. All through my inspection of that house, l was beginning to have trepida- tions about the reading situation. but, when here in the study---ironical word--my fears proved well-founded l felt desperate. l would abandon my farm-life and go homel l-low could l spend two months without doing any reading? But l remembered, l couldn't go home. So l set about rallying myself. No use getting panicky. There had to be some way out of my predicament. Reason told me there had to be something to read, someplace in the house. The family was educated, its member couldnft help but read upon occasion. Why, they'd have to, if for nothing more than to exercise their eyes. l laughed hollowly at my own humor. Nevertheless, l was reassured. The family would take papers. l-low often l'd read of the vital interest the farmer takes in the nation's affairs, how he pores over the paper's editorials, and writes his own opinions of various polemical matters. And there would be catalogues and advertisements, which don't make such bad reading in a pinch, especially if you believe advertising has been raised to an art. The stores probably swamped the family with such things. by the end of forty-nine hours, l had rounded up everything within the radius of the farmls three hundred and forty acres, that could be read. lVlama Farmerfs con- tribution was ml'here's a catalogue around somewheref' The catalogue turned out to be a T930 Sears Roebuck one, and only half a one at that. papa Farmer gladdened my heart by telling me they did take a daily paper, but saddened me when he said it was not the metropolitan daily l had hoped for, but a country one called the 'Daily Clarionn. Really the Daily Clarionf' was much more disappointing than it sounds. Resigned to its being a country paper, l expected to be vastly amused by its journalistic style, but l wasnlt. Nowhere in it was the personal, informal touch l had expected. The paper with its first page of copied news, second of household hints, third of farm commentary and Sabbath school notes, and fourth of advertising, was simply rehashed, subject-predicate writing. Sister Farmer, who was on the verge of being converted and so had no use for the Hworldyn things, was the most sympathetic to my plight, and surreptitiously slipped me a couple of novels. lt is enough to say of them that they were an experience. Brother Farmer told me the next time they opened the one-room schoolhouse for an airing, he would let me have access to the Hlibraryn. Such was my holiday reading. With its help and the fact that man's natural instinct is to live, l survived 6:00 A.lVl. to 8:00 l3.lVl. days. The familyfs ant-like industry had a constant acceleration, and soon there was no time for anybody to talk to me, and if anybody did, l knew what he was going to say, before he said it, so limited was our conversational range. Not only did l forgo talking, but l began to be self-conscious about playing with the eleven cats as we, the cats and l, were the only ones on the farm not engaged in productive work. And then one night a storm broke, a real storm with all the paraphernalia of livid gashes of lightning, of rain, thickly steady, of rolls of thunder colliding in gigantic claps, and of the outside noises when branches were stripped from thetrees. -lhe cattle bawled, cried, and tried to break out. Not quite conscious of what was happening, just aware of an angered Nature, l lay in bed. Suddenly came the shrill, penetrating voice of the telephone, shocking me to wide-awakeness. 'lwo o'clock at night and somebody was telephoningl l-lad something happened to mother? Agony of waiting, listening to feet hastily shoved into shoes, stumble down the stairs. Along the hall, bedroom doors creaked open. A moment of pause punctuated by the click of the receiver as it was taken down. A murmured response, sudden inflection of surprise, the lapse into the condoling tone, and then Mother Farmer called up the stairs, Nlhat was Emma. lVlrs. Yoder's dying at last. ll the storm lets up, llm going overf, 67