A FINE FINISH

The three upper grades of grade school, grades six, seven and eight, were among the golden years in Jenny’s growing up time. It began in the sixth grade, when Miss Ada, a slip of a girl, came to teach their one room country school. She was one of a small handful of people who made a big difference in Jenny’s life. She inspired the love of learning without ever raising her voice. She respected each person, and showed no favoritism. and she elicited the best from each. The adversary spirit that is so often seen between teacher and student was gone. Without this impediment, students were free to learn and to express themselves, and Jenny flourished under this system and began to realize her potential. The students numbered just six that year, and they were like a close knit loving family. They weren’t competitive with each other, but each did his best and cheered each other on. It was an ideal situation in which to learn, to grow and to love. Their teacher showed them the way without moralizing or preaching.

Ada had been co-valedictorian in her high school graduating class, an excellent student herself. After graduating from high school, she completed the one year normal training course that the high school offered for certification to teach in rural school. She had taught two years in another country school before coming to Jenny’s school. She was engaged to marry her high school sweetheart. She was an unsophisticated unassuming country girl, but true to the core. She wore thick glasses and had very blue eyes. She spoke in a soft low voice. Her students thought she was beautiful.

Every Friday would be test day. Tests would be given in every subject and on the material covered during the week or even the previous weeks. They had geography matches, ciphering matches and spelling bees. Each was like a game and was played in a spirit of good sportsmanship. They researched history and science and planted seeds in cans and set them in the sunny south row of school room windows. They were frequently asked to write stories, poems and essays. Miss Ada encouraged them to read as many books as they could and said there would be prizes at the end of the year for all who read ten or more books. Each book required a written
report to show that they had read and understood the book. Jenny took homework home with her nearly every afternoon, which she happily and quickly completed while Mother was preparing supper, so that she and Mother and Dad could watch their favorite radio programs. Margaret shared an apartment in town with three or four other high school girls the last two years of her high school days, due to country roads and tire rationing, and would be home only for the week ends.

Miss Ada read exciting and suspenseful books to them for opening exercises. They were captivated by, “The Wall of Men,” a suspenseful romanticized story of the Civil War. Art projects became much more creative than just coloring pictures or cutting out silhouettes. One of Jenny’s favorite and most satisfying art-history-geography projects was building a miniature grass and mud hut while they were studying the dwelling of various Indian tribes. She arrived at school early to work on this. They learned about great works of art, about design and color and did their own drawings. When Miss Ada learned that Jenny was able to play the piano better than she could, she allowed her to accompany all the singing. Miss Ada joined in their outdoor games and was one of them. She set the pace for fair play and all around good sportsmanship.

Jenny wore her long brown hair in two thick silky pigtails these days. She smiled and laughed often. Natalie’s brother Lee, who was a year older than Natalie and Jenny, had come to live with his father the year before, was secretly in love with Jenny. He looked like a monkey, but he was bright and sensitive. Even the very slowest student began to perk up and put extra work and interest into school. Miss Ada’s spirit was contagious.

They had great fun putting on P.T.A. programs and improvising on costumes and scenery. Miss Ada was a “Christmas person,” and they put much effort into making the school room beautiful, sometimes staying after school to help decorate. One year they presented Dickens,’ “A Christmas Carol,” which Jenny loved.

While they had their noon lunch from their “dinner pails,” Jenny sometimes kept the small circle entertained by imitating the comedy show she had heard on radio the night before. A favorite was, “The Red Skelton Show,” but they also liked, “Fibber McGee and Molly,” Baby Snooks,” “Jack Benny,” and “Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.”

Jenny’s handwriting became smooth and flowing and she became a better “artist”. Weekly piano lessons from a teacher in town were going well. Mother had the piano moved into the dining room in winter, which they now kept heated, so that Jenny could practice year round. Everything seemed to be coming into focus and nothing appeared insurmountable.

In the seventh grade, it was no longer Miss Ada, but just Ada, after she married her sweetheart. who was a soldier who had to be away training for the war.

Dad came home from a community sale one day with a green balloon-tired bicycle for Margaret and Jenny. Jenny enjoyed the bicycle immensely. Never had she felt so free. She rode it to school on the rough country roads whenever the weather permitted. She carried a book bag on the handle bars for homework, trying to keep the load as light and compact as she could.

Last day of school picnics were like a little bit of heaven. The weather would be pleasantly warm in late April and they all walked eagerly to the picnic site about a half mile away,from the school, helping carry the picnic supplies. They carried the supplies to the sandy creek bed of a little creek that was dry unless there had been a heavy rain. Ada guarded the supplies from marauding birds and animals while the children scrambled up and down the creek beds, playing vigorously at chase and capture make believe games. They would make a bonfire in the creek bed from the abundance of dry sticks and wood which they joyfully gathered. Their appetites sharpened by a couple of hours of play, they put the wieners and marshmallows on sharpened greener sticks and devoured them hungrily, with or without the fixings. They quenched their thirst with a rare treat of soda pop from the ice chest, which they had jointly toted from Mrs. Gobel’s house, just over the hill from the creek. There would be a couple more hours of play, then just before they went home Ada would bring out her bag of year end prizes. For the numerous books she had read, Jenny received a hard back book called, “The Vicar of Wakefield.” All the students read at least ten books, so they too received the first of their home library collection. There were numerous other small prizes for various achievements, but one that all liked best was a full pound box of cherry chocolates. Not one of them had ever experienced such a luxury. They gave the picnic scraps to the birds and put all the perishables in the ice chest. They carried their prizes back to school and then home, feeling deliciously tired. They had just enough energy left for the last day of school program for PTA that evening, before school convened for the four month summer vacation.

The momentum of the sixth and seventh grade carried over into the eighth grade. The teacher was an eighteen year old girl just out of high school. The normal training course offered by the high school had been discontinued, and now it was possible to become certified by attending a three month summer session of college. Miss Velda was not a Miss Ada, but she was a pleasant congenial, generous spirited girl, just a kid herself, and it soon became natural to just call her Velda. The two eighth grade boys had graduated and two more students had joined their group. Another relative of Natalie’s, a flirtatious dark haired beauty named Joyce from Denver, who was becoming too wild for her mother to handle. She thought some time with Natalie’s step mother in Kansas would help straigthen her out. In this tangled web of a family, with early teen aged marriages and numerous divorces, she was somehow Natilie’s half aunt and half sister to Natalie’s step mother. Joyce was a good student, but boys were on her mind and she was physically very mature. A sixth grade boy had moved into the district, just a little boy, but very wiry, and encouraged in sports by his father to excel at all sports. He was a welcome addition to the group.

Jenny often found herself explaining things to Velda, who accepted it all with good grace. Jenny worried about the eighth grade county exams that would be given at the year’s end. She didn’t let up on her studying, but increased it. Mother and Dad helped her review. She went to the County Superintendent’s office and asked for copies of last year’s exams, hoping the format might be similar. She studied them backward and forward and practiced taking the timed tests until she could increase her speed. She felt very comfortable with these tests, but studied all her subjects and perfected her handwriting and her computing and problem solving ability. She became able to deal with the tricky number sequencing. She had always been excellent at spelling; it seemed to come naturally. Still she worried that her performance might fall far below that of some of the students she knew from other schools such as her cousin Susan and Susan’s current best friend, Marilynne.


Joyce had gone back to her mother in Denver in late winter, as the beatings she received from her half sister and reported to her parents, were more than they had bargained for. Natalie’s family had moved to another farm, so the school had dwindled to three students by spring.

The end of April came. It was a rainy gloomy day. The school room was quiet except for the sound of the rain, which alternated between drizzling and pouring. It was the day the exams were to be taken. Jenny got pencils sharpened and a good eraser ready. She was ready for action, but nervous. Velda got out a sealed envelope and handed her the first test face down. She looked at her watch and said, “You may turn over the first test and begin.” Jenny was relieved to see that the format was the same as the last year’s, but of course the questions were all different. This was a multiple choice vocabulary test. There were some words Jenny wasn’t sure of, but she made a guess and blackened the space by the choice she had made. She got almost to the end when Velda said, ”Time’s up.” and picked up the uncompleted test. She put it into a large brown envelope. She gave Jenny a short break to get a drink of water, or just walk around the room, then handed out the second test, again timing it carefully. This was the reading comprehension test. Jenny felt comfortable with it and thought she got all of these, but hoped she would have time to go over it again to be sure. However, just as she was completing the last one, Velda said “Time’s up,” and picked up the test. There were four more tests that morning and two more left for after lunch. The lunch was a welcome break, and because it was raining, the three students and Velda played indoor games after lunch. The remaining tests were handwriting and spelling. Jenny was surprised that she wasn’t sure of the spelling of three of the words. She had always made one hundred per cent in all spelling tests during their daily work, but of course this was from a studied list. After collecting the last test, Velda put it in the large brown envelope and sealed it with tape. It was to be taken to the county superintendent’s office, where it would be graded along with those of all the eighth grade students from the various schools throughout the county. There would be about fifty students. Not all would be going to the same centrally located high school where Jenny would go; a fair number would go to the high schools in the smaller towns scattered throughout the county. Jenny spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book from the school library, until Dad picked her up after school to take her home. Dad asked her how the tests had gone and she said she had done her best but wasn’t sure this was good enough. She told Mother the same thing. They both reassured her that if she had done her best, this was all anyone could do and that she should not worry about it any more. They knew she was a smart girl and had worked hard.

There was still one more week of school. It was decided not to have a last day of school picnic, as it was rainy again and there were only three students. Instead,. there was a covered dish dinner at noon, attended by a few PTA members. It was an anticlimactic ending to Jenny’s happy times in country school.

About two weeks later, In about the middle of May, the rains had cleared and the ground had dried. Jenny decided to look at the place Dad had bought across the road that the Painter family had recently vacated. She hadn’t been there in about seven years, due to the Painter’s hostility toward them. She was still feeling a little low about the exams and had a sore throat and felt she was catching a cold. She enjoyed exploring the small vacant house and the out buildings, but best of all was a stretch of Beaver Creek that she had never seen before. Jenny was a nature lover and its beauty moved her. She very carefully crossed the creek bed on stepping stones where the clear running water was low. She climbed the steep bank to the little meadow on the other side. There she discovered the tiny grave of the Painter’s dog marked with a hand carved stone that read, “Buster Airedale.” Someone must have loved this dog to put so much time into the deep carving on the hard stone. For a few moments she sat quietly by and mourned the death of this fine dog. She decided to go back home now and have one of the cherry chocolates she had been hoarding from the box that Velda had given in following the precedent set by Ada. First she gathered a few pretty rocks and shells from the clear running water in the creek. She noticed some violets growing near the creek and promised herself that tomorrow she would come with a box and a shovel or spade and would dig up some to transplant into their yard at home.

When Jenny walked into the kitchen Mother said the county paper had come and that the list of eighth grade graduates was on the front page.

“Did I even make the honor roll?” Jenny asked, somewhat pessimistically.

“See for yourself,” Mother said, and there at the top of the honor roll she saw, “Jennifer Jane Barnes.” The scores of the top ten were given and Jenny’s score was ninety seven point six percent. Jenny couldn’t believe her eyes.

“This also came in the mail for you,” and Mother handed her a long white envelope which she hadn’t opened. Jenny opened it carefully at one end with the scissors and it said, “Congratulations upon being valedictorian of your graduating class.” It was signed by the county superintendent. There was also an invitation for her to perform at the graduation program, which was to be held in about two weeks. Jenny broke into smiles and so did Mother. Her sore throat suddenly disappeared and she felt light hearted and ate her cherry chocolate slowly and offered one to Mother who declined, because she said they were just for Jenny.

On the morning of graduation, the honor roll students were to be interviewed by a committee of the best educated of the Legionnaires for the American Legion Award, which was given each year to a selected boy and girl, for being the most outstanding students. Jenny didn’t imagine she had a chance at this, as they never selected a valedictorian, but tried to to pass the honors around. She was relaxed and spontaneous and wore her light blue dress with the short puffed sleeves and wide sash. She and Mother had made it together last summer for a 4H project. The blue of the dress made her dark blue eyes look even larger. She had her long brown hair curled on the ends and was still a little doll of a girl, looking a bit like Alice in Wonderland. The three men were disarmed by her modest easy going manner and the subtle levity with which she answered some of the questions.

Jenny played a piano solo for the graduation program that afternoon. She had nervously rolled up her sheet music and it refused to stand up on the music rack of the piano, so the young preacher who had delivered the invocation, held it up for her and she continued her piece, a very fast piece called “Auf der Wiese,” by H. Lichner which Jenny loved. It meant , “On the Meadow.” When they announced her name for the American Legion Award, you could have knocked her over with a feather. The future looked very bright for Jenny that day.