Timmins High and Vocational School - Porcupine Quill Yearbook (Timmins, Ontario Canada)

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4-4 .i.l The PORCUPINE QUILL Our Salad Days It is the anecdote that best defines the personality. -Ludwig The child is father of the man. -Wordsworth. The following true accounts of dark deeds done in early childhood were written by the perpetrators thereof-all students of the Middle School. Amateur psycho-analysts are invited to study the data submitted and -to report their findings,-CStafE Editors noteb Very young children usually like meddling with handles and buttons on automobiles which they should not touch. I can Well remember meddling with the controls of an old 1919 model Ford. We were sitting in the front seat of the car -my cousin and myself-and I was pretend- ing that I was taking her for a ride. While we were in the car our parents were on the talking. I began making a noise veranda with my mouth, as must children do, to pre- tend the car was going. I had often watched my father drive the car and when he started it he always let a lever down on the left hand side of the steering wheel. fI'o make the ride more real I decided to let the lever down. It was the em-ergency brake. After some fiddling around I managed to get it down and I sat up to drive the car. To my surprise the car began to move, and go down the hill. My cousin, who was a little older, tried to stop it by pushing on the foot brake but she could not. Our parents came running out of the house to try and catch the car by running after it, but it had too much of a start. We went down the hill and ran into a clump of small tag-alders which stopped us. When my father got hold of me after the car was brought back to the house, he gave me what children usually get for being naughty. BY ? ak sie Ik Before I reached the age of three I was nick- named Bouncer due to my habit of bounc- ing up and down whenever I found myself on a chesterfield, chair or bed. But one day I was suddenly cured of this annoying habit. The credit goes to the scrubwoman who came in every so often to give the house a thorough going over. As usual I toddled after her from room to room, sitting on a chair, bouncing up and down, and singing in the language which only my twin brother and I understood. But fate was against me this day, for I quite unex- pectedly found myself in fthe old woman's scrub pail, which by this time was undeniably black, as she had reached the last room. I heard dimly the surprised scream and then I was yanked out, dripping wet. As soon as I could get 'over my fright I imme- diately let out shriek after shriek, which re- sulted in my twin brother appearing on the scene, putting his chubby little arms around me and crying with me. 5 ? as qi When I think of my past I often wonder if 'there was ever a child half as bad as I. My childhood was one catastrophe after another, In the first place I hated girls as badly as I hated to wear shoes and stockings. In 'the summer time I would not Wear shoes and stockings, and a good many spankings I got for being so stubborng but I did get my own way. I often got into trouble for eating a portion of sand with perfectly good water, which I thought a great delicacy. Our pets were not cats or dogs, but Tommy fthe boy I played Withl and I had a troop of frogs and toads. We kept them in an old stove and played with them every day. WHO ? fr ff if When I was very young I was obliged to go to bed early. The worst part of my life was always being told to go to bed just when I was beginning to enjoy myself. I would go upstairs and feel very sorry for myself as I heard the gay laughter below. I knew that games were being played, and promised my- self that when I grew up I would stay up all night just to show them! Another thing that took all the joy out of life was being seen and not heard. Whenever there was any company at the lrofuse I was expected to sit straight, not to play, and above all, to speak only if I were spoken to!' AUTHOR ?

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45 -L-1- The PORCUPINE QUILL WWW One thing I liked to do when I was very young was to press my nose flat against the window-pane. My brother used to bet that he could hold his nose against the pane longer than I . Then we would hold con- tests. The first time we did it my brother held out the longer, and he, of course, made fun of me. But whenever I won I made sure that I didn't let him feel very good about it. ? 2? Qi if One day when we lived on Balsam Street, my father sent a boy over to chop a cord of wood. I was only about six or seven then. I leaned against the railings of the back porch, watching him cut the wood. Suddenly I said to him, How are you getting along, Fatty? He was really very fat, and he took offence and walked 05 leaving his job. Since that day I have had to split the Wood. 9 ik -ll 14 Everything had to be kept out of my reach. Well I remember the time I upset a jar of jam on the kitchen floor. Mother Was getting me -a piece of bread and jam when the phone rang. Up I climbed on a chair and go-t the jar off the table. But as luck would have it the chair moved-and down I fell! Jam and all. Another time, when mother left me alone for a few moments, I fed her roast to the dog. Another little habit of mine was running away, and strange as it may seem, I always headed for the school. I yearned to be going to school. Two or three times a day mother would have to leave her work and go to get me. I never thought of the trouble I was causing her: but what little child does? NAME ? at if S2 'Wha.t a care-free life I led when I was very young! The children then seemed to have more ambition than the children of to-day. My friends and I were never idle. We were always doing something. My favourite ac- tivity was to be an actress. Four or five of my friends and myself would borrow an empty garage or an old shed, and put on a show. I can Well remember the time we had arguing over the programme and the charge for admission to our theatre. We usually charged one pin, because nearly everyone could find a. pin somewhere. I remember once that we charged one cent, and after the show was over had to give the money back. NAME ? In the summer, by way of amusement, I would throw my rubber boots into a creek nearby. I did this so often that father made a fishing apparatus to regain my boots and fashioned a thin board to regain my obe- dience When I had been deprived of this form of amusement, the presence of cracks be- tween the boards on the verandah became obnoxious to my optics. To reriiedy this, I used two pounds of butter to till them in. Several years later I came to the Timmins High School and learned to do more grown- up things, such as throwing running shoes and putting tacks on chairs. ? 51 vi ak Mother has told me I was a worry to our neighbours, especially to those on either side of us, neither of whom had any children. I loved to visit Mrs. B. because she had so many magazines for me to look at. One day she was washing the floor and wanted me to, run along and play like a good girl. When I wouldn't leave, she put me out. I can still remember how angry I was. Later, Mother came up the lane and caught me throwing rocks at her screen door. Needless to say I never threw any more stones, and I didn't visit lVIrs. B. for over a month. uYn-1? ,F ii' 4: Only a few snatches of my very early life remain in my mind. Some of these stand out clearly and seem to have been of great im- portance at the time they happened. I can remember back as far as when I was about two years old. At that time I was told to stay away from the ant hill in the backyard. I, like any other child, immediately Went to the ant hill and began to dig it up with my shovel. The ants crawled all over me and I can still remember their biting my back and legs. Another thing that stands out is time that my father brought home his first deer. I remember seeing him walking into the inn house across the road. with the deer the