“There is a convenient bathroom at the side of the room, where that door is, with no window in it, like the rest of this place, and no lock on the door. You will then return and fasten yourself to the chain again. If I do not happen to be in the room at the time you need to go, Frank will find a button in the wall behind him which will ring a bell upstairs. I think that takes care of your living conditions.”
Someone started to speak, then stopped and raised his hand. Ezra. “Grand — Miss Palmer, I mean, how come you got this kinda place down here? You keep prisoners before?”
She smiled kindly at him. “No, but my father did. He trained police dogs and sometimes he had to get rough with them, so this room is entirely soundproofed. There is no way that anyone can hear you. I don’t doubt there will be people looking for you, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
Another hand went up. “Miss Palmer,” said the small Iris tearfully, “you ever gonna let us go?”
“Of course, my dear.” The teacher spoke benevolently. “As soon as you have learned how to be little ladies and gentlemen. And have learned how to speak properly and acquired sufficient knowledge to function in the outside world and to prove to your present teachers that the so-called old fashioned methods of teaching are the best in training young minds — why, then you may go.”
The tall towhead raised his hand. “Miss Palmer? What’s gonna happen to you if you set us free? The slammer, that’s what. This is kidnapping, you know that? So you can’t let us go, you’re gonna have to kill us to save yourself, you old crackpot!” His voice rose.
A wail went up from the others, and everywhere was bedlam.
Miss Palmer banged on her bell and finally slashed the whip through the air.
“Quiet!” she demanded. “Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? The sooner you learn what I am about to teach you, the sooner you will get out of here! Frank, you will speak to me with respect or you will feel my whip on your legs. Now, I presume by ‘the slammer’ you mean jail or, more properly, prison, since kidnapping is a felony and not a misdemeanor.”
She continued in her pleasant schoolteacherish voice, “I don’t know if any of you have been there, but up in the hills beyond Riverville there is a beautiful group of buildings for the mentally ill — little cottages, trees, benches, arts and crafts and many interesting things to do in the recreation building — friends and companionship quiet and no responsibility.
“My money is gone and my house is almost in ruins by now, so I will be glad to have someone to take care of me. I will not be sent to prison, you can be sure, but to this beautiful home in the hills, for the rest of my life. So do not worry about what will happen to me once you are set free. As you will be; you have my personal bond for that.
“And that is the first lesson you are about to learn today: the question of personal integrity. Do not lie. Do not break promises. Hold yourself always above such demeaning traits. This is what is called ethics. Now. Shall we proceed to our school books?”
It was a rough and stormy voyage. The whip was used occasionally, but lightly, the bell was pounded on often, but heavily. The pistol was used just once, shot into the ceiling to teach Frank a lesson when, on his way to the bathroom, he made a lunge for the door to the upstairs. He was scared out of his wits, and returned to his chains with relief. The little black boy, Ezra, gave no trouble. Obedience was in his genes.
Although they studied the usual school subjects such as mathematics, geography and history (up until World War I) Miss Palmer stressed English above all else. “How will you communicate?” she asked them reasonably, “if you don’t know how to write or speak properly? And without communication—”
“But Miss Palmer—” Remembering suddenly, Iris waved her small brown hand in the air and, at a nod, “Miss Palmer, I don’t want to communicate,” she objected. “I just want to get married, have big family.”
“Oh, I see,” said Miss Palmer. “You don’t adhere to the teachings of the woman’s liberation movement I hear so much about these days.”
“Well, I do,” said Maggie, waving her arm but not waiting for permission to speak. “When I grow up I’m going to be a revolutionary.”
“To what purpose?” Miss Palmer asked with interest.
“I’m going to fight in Ireland and save it!”
“From what?”
“Why, from... from all them people that’s blowing it up.”
“All those people,” said Miss Palmer, her voice sharp. “How many times do I have to tell you? Do you want this switch on your legs? Now where were we? Oh! You’re going to Ireland to fight singlehandedly to save it from whatever they’re doing over there now — it’s just as well I never pay attention to the news, I’d learn more than I care to.
“Well, I see we have a modern Joan of Arc in our midst.” At the blank look on her students’ faces, Miss Palmer now delved into the problems of France’s Maid of Orleans, something apparently new, she decided, in the lives of these culturally deprived children.
Their eyes became glassy as they always did when totally devoid of interest in the subject at hand, but their ears and minds absorbing enough so that they could answer some of the questions they knew would be propounded later. Let’s get the hell out of this asshole at any price! their minds told them in unison. Get it right and let’s get out.
So they listened, the information going in one ear and about to go out the other — after they’d passed their examinations.
Miss Palmer did not care for the New Math. Her students were about to be instructed in the traditional arithmetic of her youth. “That New Math,” she told them, “Is a lot of balderdash dug up by some out-of-work teacher who wants to make a name for himself. It is anything but instructive and I won’t wonder that no one can make head or tail of it—”
“I did!” Maggie yelled. “I got A- in it last term!”
“Indeed?” Her teacher spoke coldly. “Well, this term, with our traditional arithmetic, you will get A-plus. Is that clear?”
In her zeal, Miss Palmer did not, of course, overlook either the cultural aspects of life as it was lived in the 1890’s or the proper social amenities.
She was determined that they should absorb all she was able to provide in the way of music and literature, although she did feel somewhat handicapped in her lack of suitable materials. However, she told herself with satisfaction, she had been able to make do.
So, although she had never owned a radio or a television set, considering them a deplorable waste of time and mind-bending instruments that perverted all the cultural potentialities of anyone who used them, she was determined to do her own mind-bending toward culture.
“Therefore, she one day produced an ancient phonograph with a flower-like horn, and an-equally ancient record of Caruso singing Pagliacci. After which, in an effort to improve her charges’ critical faculties, she then produced a newer record of Mario Lanza imitating Caruso,” her lip curled meanwhile.
“Now, do you see what I mean?” she demanded of her charges. “The first record is pure art, the second is trash.”
The children looked at her blankly.
She read David Copperfield to them and their eyes grew ever more glassy. She read Shakespeare and they struggled with their yawns. She told them that their whole futures depended on what they read and they stared at her in amazement — and disbelief. She struggled onward — arithmetic, geography, history, even civics (they knew only three presidents: Washington, Lincoln and the incumbent) in the morning, English and the classics in the afternoon, proper manners and social deportment in the evening.