I REMEMBER THE HOME
I heard the sudden intake of breath that worked itself downward from Miriam to Talitha and then the rapid whisper that informed Abie and Martha. I heard Esther's muffled cry and I turned slowly around and leaned against the desk.
"There are so many beautiful things to remember about the Home," I said into the strained silence. "So many wonderful things. And even the sad memories are better than forgetting, because the Home was good. Tell me what you remember about the Home."
"We can't!" Joel and Matt were on their feet simultaneously.
"Why can't we?" Dorcas cried. "Why can't we?"
"It's bad!" Esther cried. "It's evil!"
"It ain't either!" Abie shrilled, astonishingly. "It ain't either!"
"We shouldn't." Miriam's trembling hands brushed her heavy" hair upward. "It's forbidden."
"Sit down," I said gently. "The day I arrived at Bendo Mr. Diemus told me to teach you what I had to teach you. I have to teach you that remembering the Home is good."
"Then why don't the grownups think so?" Matt asked slowly. "They tell us not to talk about it. We shouldn't disobey our parents."
"I know," I admitted. "And I would never ask you children to go against your parents' wishes, unless I felt that it is very important. If you'd rather they didn't know about it at first, keep it as our secret. Mr. Diemus told me not to bother them with explanations or reasons. I'll make it right with your parents when the time comes." I paused to swallow and blink away a vision of me leaving town in a cloud of dust, barely ahead of a posse of irate parents. "'Now, everyone, busy," I said briskly. "'I Remember the Home.'"
There was a moment heavy with decision and I held my breath, wondering which way the balance would dip. And then-surely it must have been because they wanted so to speak and affirm the wonder of what had been that they capitulated so easily. Heads bent and pencils scurried. And Martha sat, her head bowed on her desk with sorrow.
"I don't know enough words," she mourned. "How do you write 'toolas'?"
And Abie laboriously erased a hole through his paper and ticked his pencil again.
"Why don't you and Abie make some pictures?" I suggested. "Make a little story with pictures and we can staple them together like a real book."
I looked over the silent busy group and let myself relax, feeling weakness flood into my knees. I scrubbed the dampness from my palms with Kleenex and sat back in my chair. Slowly I became conscious of a new atmosphere in my classroom. An intolerable strain was gone, an unconscious holding back of the children, a wariness, a watchfulness, a guilty feeling of desiring what was forbidden.