described in detail the fine furniture we would have, and the delicious things we would eat: T-bone steaks and watermelon every day, just the sweet seedless heart of the watermelon, we'd throw the rest away, and we would never again have to shrimp and save, not after our ship came in!
As soon as she was strong enough, Mother enrolled me for what was left of the school year. She had wanted me to go to a Catholic school where I would get a better education, but in the end she sent me to P.S. 5 just down the street because if I was close by I could continue my schooling even when she was in bed with lung fever. I could make breakfast and care for her in the mornings and return during lunch period to see how she was doing and make her some soup, then I could get home immediately after school; but if I were at Our Lady of Angels school seventeen blocks away up the Lexington Avenue hill, I would have to take days, even weeks, off from school every time she got sick, and that would not only ruin my education, but it would alert the authorities to the fact that she was ill, and they might try to take us kids away from her. So I was to go to P.S. 5 for the time being... just until her lungs got stronger.
Miss Cox
As it turned out, I went to P.S. 5 for three years before transferring to Our Lady of Angels, while Anne-Marie was able to begin at the little convent school only two blocks from our apartment. The parish paid her fees, and the sisters made her uniforms, so it didn't cost us anything to send her, and she loved the convent school and the sisters, who were delighted by her shy grace and her refined features. When it came to looks, Anne-Marie had inherited all the beauty genes, both from my mother who, although a plain, petulantly frowning little girl in the one sepia photograph we had of her, had metamorphosed into a vivacious knockout of a flapper by the time she was sixteen years old, and from my father, whose mischievous good looks were a major asset to his life of conning and conniving. One of the younger nuns enjoyed plaiting Anne-Marie's long blonde hair, and they would ask her to sing and dance for them, then they would applaud while she blushed, very pleased.
I had gloried in school in Lake George Village, where I was treated as something special because I could read and write while other kids were still chanting their ABC's. I was allowed to sit at the back of the room reading at a little table of my own, and from time to time the teacher would come and ask me about what I was reading, or give me a little writing task to do. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read and write. Starting before I was a year old, my mother read me picture books from the library, and later she read the cereal boxes to me each morning before she went to work: ingredients and recipes from the sides of the boxes, stories from the back, and the practical 'cowboy life' tips that were printed on the cardboard spacers between layers of Shredded Wheat, like the trick of putting your lasso in a circle around you when you're sleeping on the ground during a cattle drive, because rattlesnakes hate to crawl over rope. I've never forgotten that bit of wilderness lore although I confess I've never had occasion to use it, but if I had, I'd have wanted assurance in advance that the rattlers knew the rules. Mother would read the cartoon or the card so I got the idea of it, then she'd go over it again slowly, pointing to each word as she said it until one day, according to her, my face lit up as I suddenly understood that the letter cluster and the word sound meant the same thing!
One morning, my mother was changing my newly arrived baby sister while I was eating breakfast, and she suddenly became aware that I was reading the cereal box aloud to get a little attention. At first, she thought I must be repeating what I had memorized from her earlier reading. But you could have knocked her down with a feather bed when she realized that this was a new
As soon as she was strong enough, Mother enrolled me for what was left of the school year. She had wanted me to go to a Catholic school where I would get a better education, but in the end she sent me to P.S. 5 just down the street because if I was close by I could continue my schooling even when she was in bed with lung fever. I could make breakfast and care for her in the mornings and return during lunch period to see how she was doing and make her some soup, then I could get home immediately after school; but if I were at Our Lady of Angels school seventeen blocks away up the Lexington Avenue hill, I would have to take days, even weeks, off from school every time she got sick, and that would not only ruin my education, but it would alert the authorities to the fact that she was ill, and they might try to take us kids away from her. So I was to go to P.S. 5 for the time being... just until her lungs got stronger.
Miss Cox
As it turned out, I went to P.S. 5 for three years before transferring to Our Lady of Angels, while Anne-Marie was able to begin at the little convent school only two blocks from our apartment. The parish paid her fees, and the sisters made her uniforms, so it didn't cost us anything to send her, and she loved the convent school and the sisters, who were delighted by her shy grace and her refined features. When it came to looks, Anne-Marie had inherited all the beauty genes, both from my mother who, although a plain, petulantly frowning little girl in the one sepia photograph we had of her, had metamorphosed into a vivacious knockout of a flapper by the time she was sixteen years old, and from my father, whose mischievous good looks were a major asset to his life of conning and conniving. One of the younger nuns enjoyed plaiting Anne-Marie's long blonde hair, and they would ask her to sing and dance for them, then they would applaud while she blushed, very pleased.
I had gloried in school in Lake George Village, where I was treated as something special because I could read and write while other kids were still chanting their ABC's. I was allowed to sit at the back of the room reading at a little table of my own, and from time to time the teacher would come and ask me about what I was reading, or give me a little writing task to do. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read and write. Starting before I was a year old, my mother read me picture books from the library, and later she read the cereal boxes to me each morning before she went to work: ingredients and recipes from the sides of the boxes, stories from the back, and the practical 'cowboy life' tips that were printed on the cardboard spacers between layers of Shredded Wheat, like the trick of putting your lasso in a circle around you when you're sleeping on the ground during a cattle drive, because rattlesnakes hate to crawl over rope. I've never forgotten that bit of wilderness lore although I confess I've never had occasion to use it, but if I had, I'd have wanted assurance in advance that the rattlers knew the rules. Mother would read the cartoon or the card so I got the idea of it, then she'd go over it again slowly, pointing to each word as she said it until one day, according to her, my face lit up as I suddenly understood that the letter cluster and the word sound meant the same thing!
One morning, my mother was changing my newly arrived baby sister while I was eating breakfast, and she suddenly became aware that I was reading the cereal box aloud to get a little attention. At first, she thought I must be repeating what I had memorized from her earlier reading. But you could have knocked her down with a feather bed when she realized that this was a new
Similar Books
![Fire of the Wolf [The Gray Pack] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/498033/thumbs/152x264/fire-of-the-wolf-the-gray-pack-siren-publishing-menage-amour.png)
