Many people asked me about my children's stories, so I will post Part One of "A Memorial Lesson learned."
It was March 22nd, 1980, on a cool spring day, and school had just been dismissed. Emily Martinelle was walking down Main Street with her backpack on her shoulders and a newspaper in her hand.
Emily Martinelle, who was ten years old, had two brothers and one sister; one of her brothers was older and her other brother and sister were younger. Her older brother’s name was Joe, and he was fifteen, Allison, often called Allie for short, was five, and her other brother, Moses, was three. The Martinelles lived on Blooms Road in Scotsburg, Maine.
Joe, Emily, Allison, and Moses went to the school in Scotsburg, for it was the only school there. It was kind of like a school in the 1800’s, and kind of like a modern-day school. Emily thought the school was neat. The schoolhouse was four stories high, one floor for Pre-school and Kindergarten, one floor for Elementary school, from 1st grade to 5th grade, one floor for middle school, from 6th grade to 8th grade, and lastly, the top floor was for high school students, from 9th to 12th grade. The college was right across the schoolhouse in a different building. The lunch building was next to the schoolhouse, and there was also a little playground for the kids to play on during recess.
Right now Emily was walking home, thinking about what today’s paper said. All of the families who signed up got a newspaper every week, but this newspaper started up a whole bunch of excitement. In this week’s newspaper, the first page said that in a foreign country, a woman had a desire to be an American. She had lived her whole life in that country, and had raised her kids there. She had decided to come live in Scotsburg, because it was the town she would land in, for they had a dock there. However, there were a couple of problems that troubled the people of Scotsburg. First of all, the newspaper claimed that she did not speak English very well. Nobody in Scotsburg knew very many foreign languages, but they were doing their best to, and second of all, it also said that she was a weirdo, and that an explorer had gone to this country and had said that it was “very weird, and not at all like Americans. I am sure it would take me awhile to learn their customs.” Who wanted a foreign weirdo living in their town? Certainly not the people of Scotsburg!
Emily was confused as she walked home. Why would people believe this woman was a weirdo? What if the newspaper was wrong? It surely couldn’t always be right! How did the printers even know this? Hadn’t foreigners come and gone here as long as she could remember? She thought she could remember somebody speaking at least one weird language. Just then, Emily happened to be walking by the dock. Dock workers almost always knew the answers to these sorts of things. They were probably the ones who told the printers that because they were the ones who recorded the times at which people were coming or going.
Then a dock worker walked by, and she decided to ask him her questions. She knew all of the dock workers by name, and this one was Mr. Jimmy Garfield.
“Hi, Mr. Garfield!” she finally said. Then he turned and saw her.
“Hi, Emily! How have you been?” he asked. Everybody knew each other in this town.
“I’m great,” said Emily, “but I wanted to ask some questions. Why is everyone so worried about this lady coming to Scotsburg just because the newspaper says she is a weirdo? Is there any chance they might be wrong?”
“Well,” answered Mr. Garfield, “that is not uncommon, but, as the newspaper said, an explorer actually went there and said—well, it is in the newspaper, but anyway, we don’t have a second witness, so we can’t prove it true, but it is good to be prepared, right?” Two or three witnesses was enough to proclaim a matter true in Scotsburg.
“Right. Do they absolutely know about her bad English too?” asked Emily once again.
“They don’t. It is the same thing in this matter too, so I’m not sure of all of the answers, but we might find out some of this stuff this upcoming Monday. Any other questions?” answered Mr. Garfield.
“I think I am good, so I will go on home. Bye!” said Emily as she began to walk home.
“Bye!” said Mr. Garfield.
Mr. Garfield’s answers began to make her think more. What if the lady could be of great use to the town? Suppose she learned English and became a language teacher in the school? Not that there was a great chance of that happening, but she knew that someway, somehow, she and her husband (the newspaper said she had a husband that was coming with her) would come in handy.
To Be Continued...
