how widespread is my neighbors' interest in lawnmowing. Mrs. Brocklebank-whose daughter, Heather, is in my Grade English class-took a slightly different approach to her lawn; I found her ripping her dandelions out by their roots.
'You'd better do the same thing,' she said to me. 'Pull them out, don't mow them under. If you chop them up with the mower, you'll just make more of them.'
'Like starfish,' I said; I should have known better-it's never a good idea to introduce Mrs. Brocklebank to a new subject, not unless you have time to kill. If I'd assigned 'The Maiden' to Mrs. Brocklebank, she would have gotten everything right-the first time.
'What do you know about starfish?' she asked.
'I grew up on the seacoast,' I reminded her. It is occasionally necessary for me to tell Torontonians of the presence of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; they tend to think of the Great Lakes as the waters of the world.
'So what about starfish?' Mrs. Brocklebank asked.
'You cut them up, they grow more starfish,' I said.
'Is that in a book?' asked Mrs. Brocklebank. I assured her that it was. I even have a book that describes the life of the starfish, although Owen and I knew not to chop them up long before we read about them; every kid in Gravesend learned all about starfish at the beach at Little Boar's Head. I remember my mother telling Owen and me not to cut them up; starfish are very destructive, and their powers of reproduction are not encouraged in New Hampshire. Mrs. Brocklebank is persistent regarding new information; she goes after everything as aggressively as she attacks her dandelions. 'I'd like to see that book,' she announced. And so I began again with what has become a fairly routine labor: discouraging Mrs. Brocklebank from reading another book-I work as hard at discouraging her, and with as little
success, as I sometimes latx>r to encourage those BSS girls to read their assignments.
'It's not a very good book,' I said. 'It's written by an amateur, it's published by a vanity press.'
'So what's wrong with an amateur writing a book?' Mrs. Brocklebank wanted to know. She is probably writing one of her own, it occurs to me now. 'So what's wrong with a 'vanity press'?' she asked. The book that tells the truth about the starfish is called The Life of the Tidepool by Archibald Thorndike. Old Thorny was an amateur naturalist and an amateur diarist, and after he retired from Gravesend Academy, he spent two years scrutinizing a tidepool in Rye Harbor; at his own expense, he published a book about it and sold autographed copies of the book every Alumni Day. He parked his station wagon by the tennis courts and sold his books off the tailgate, chatting with all the alumni who wanted to talk to him; since he was a very popular headmaster-and since he was replaced by a particularly unpopular headmaster-almost all the alumni wanted to talk to old Thorny. I suppose he sold a lot of copies of The Life of the Tidepool; he might even have made money. Maybe he wasn't such an amateur, after all. He knew how to handle The Voice-by not handling him. And The Voice would prove to be the undoing of the new headmaster, in the end. In the end, I yielded to Mrs. Brocklebank's frenzy to educate herself; I said I'd lend her my copy ofThe Life of the Tidepool.
'Be sure to remind Heather to reread the first 'phase' of Tess,' I told Mrs. Brocklebank.
'Heather's not reading her assignments?' Mrs. Brocklebank asked in alarm.
'It's spring,' I reminded her. 'All the girls aren't reading their assignments. Heather's doing just fine.' Indeed, Heather Brocklebank is one of my better students; she has inherited her mother's ardor-while, at the same time, her imagination ranges far beyond dandelions. In a flash, I think of giving my Grade English class a sneak quiz; if they gave the first 'phase' of Tess such a sloppy reading, I'll bet they skipped the Introduction altogether-and I had assigned the Introduction, too; I don't always do that, but there's an Introduction by Robert B. Heilman that's especially helpful to first readers of Hardy. I know a really nasty quiz question! I think-looking at Mrs. Brocklebank, clutching her murdered dandelions.
'What was Thomas Hardy's earlier title for TessT' Ha! It's nothing they could ever guess; if they'd read the Introduction, they'd know it was Too Late Beloved-they'd at least remember the 'too late' part. Then I remembered that Hardy had written a story-before Tess-called ' 'The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid'; I wondered if I could throw in that title, to confuse them. Then I remembered that Mrs. Brocklebank was standing on the sidewalk with her handful of dandelions, waiting for me to fetch her The Life of the Tidepool. And last of all I remembered that Owen Meany and I first read Tess of the d'Urbervilles in our tenth-grade year at Gravesend Academy; we were in Mr. Early's English class-it was the winter term of -and I was struggling with Thomas Hardy to the point of tears. Mr. Early was a fool to try Tess on tenth graders. At Bishop Strachan, I have long argued with my colleagues that we should teach Hardy in Grade -even Grade is too soon! Even The Brothers Karamazov is easier than Tess!
'I can't read this!' I remember saying to Owen. He tried to help me; he helped me with everything else, but Tess was simply too difficult. 'I can't read about milking cows!' I screamed.
'IT'S NOT ABOUT MILKING COWS,' Owen said crossly.
