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CHAPTER seven
The Little Orphan Granny settles in at school and discovers books
School was both a good time and a terrible time for The Orphan.
It was good because now The Orphan had a constant in his life from the third through the sixth grades at Idlewild School.
It was terrible because of the behavior of many snotty little rich bastards, especially Buford Hoover, who disdained The Orphan because of their differences both in how they now lived and how they had lived in the past. Many of these snotty little rich bastards, as well as some of the teachers, looked upon The
Orphan as a dirty urchin (whatever that was).
The Orphan had only clothes that were handed down, ragged, out of style and ill fitting – and usually too small. Since The Orphan had not been taught oral hygiene, regular bathing and table manners or the wearing of underwear, The Orphan was ridiculed savagely – especially when wearing too small, too short pants
and having great difficulty keeping modest. The situation was a benefit, though, when use of “bathroom” was involved.
The Orphan thought that one teacher, named Mrs. Smith, could have played the role of the witch in any story – and without any additional makeup. Mrs. Smith would, upon any occasion or cause, slap The Orphan – usually so the ear was impacted and made to ring. The Orphan spent many hours daydreaming about ways to
slowly dismember Mrs. Smith and feed the pieces to dogs while smiling into her contorted face and listening to her screams and pleadings for mercy. In this daydream, The Orphan would occasionally slap her face around the ears as hard as possible.
Such things caused The Orphan to seek solace in any way possible – and Lo!! -- The Orphan discovered books. The Orphan indulged in an orgy of reading and never in the remainder of his life lost the addiction.
While in Grade Four, The Orphan was summoned to the office of Mrs. Stanton The Principal as a result of the School Librarian telling her The Orphan was checking out too many books and books beyond his grade level. This misguided Principal and School Librarian forbade The Orphan books such as The Swiss Family
Robinson.
Fuming, The Orphan cast about for other sources to feed his addiction and discovered Heaven. Heaven was The Cosset Public Library. There were few books in The Cosset Public library that eluded The Orphan.
The Orphan read The Swiss Family Robinson. The Orphan then read all of the Joseph Altsheler books about the Adventures of Henry Ware, Long Jim Hart, The brave Wyandotte Indian Chief and the evil Braxton Wyatt.
And he read all of the Thornton W. Burgess’s Old Mother West Wind series about Sammy the Jay, Reddy the Fox, Farmer Brown, Billy the Mink, and all. Much later, for his Grandchildren, the Orphan was to order all of the Burgess treasures from the archives of the Library of Congress.
The Orphan reveled in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan stories. The Orphan sometimes just used the alphabet to pick the next books.
Usually, The Orphan couldn’t wait and would start reading at the library. There were many times The Orphan ran into telephone poles or buildings because he tried to read as he trudged home.
And the library was free of cost and censorship by people who were misguided as to their education responsibilities! The Orphan learned many orders of magnitude more from the plethora of books he read than he learned from the constipated and constrained teachings of such self-nominated demigods as Mrs. Stanton.
Again The Little Orphan Granny and The Real Granville met, deplored the evils of censorship and the joys of circumventing the censoring idiots! In one of the files kept by The Real Granville is the following rule:
“…All learning and knowledge are permissible. Beware of preachers, teachers, supervisors, self-nominated members of any elite (such as an Albrecht – a worst example), judges, lawyers, politicians, Generals and other idiots who try to control
knowledge…”
In all honesty, The Orphan must admit that reading, writing and arithmetic were of value as were geography, science and such. But history was to be eyed suspiciously because of another Real Granville/Little Orphan rule:
“…History is written by either a biased historian or by the winners…”
So the Orphan progressed through the sixth grade until he began a new series of adventures.
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