Miss Caroline's First Day

Miss Caroline's First Day

It was the first day of school for many in Maycomb, including myself. I had just moved from a college in Winston Country. Almost 30 years have past since that day in Maycomb when I first saw the school I was to be teaching at. The classroom smelt stale after being closed up for the whole summer, as I met my students who I would teach for the next year. The one child I remember most had a trail of dirty footprints leading to his desk. The little horror looked like he was straight from the pig pen.

After a hectic morning, the children were coming inside from the playground. The filthy child I noticed in the morning, walked past. He smelled of farmyard animals. I can still recall his stench now some 30 years on. I was fascinated by the filthiness of his hands which were the colour of the earth, which had so distracted me that I didn't even notice a massive insect which ambushed me from his head of grimy hair.

"It's alive!" I exclaimed with horror.

The children rushed to my attention, one child shut the door so we could swiftly execute the creature. The children fired a million questions at me about the creature's whereabouts, but all I could do it unsteadily point at the unclean boy with grimy hair.

"You mean him ma'am? Yes, he's alive," only something a child could say. I told him about the insect and how it crawled out of the boy's hair. The boy seamed to find it amusing that I was scared of the creature they called a cootie. He assured me that there was nothing to be afraid of. The sweet young thing led me back to my desk, and brought me a glass of water.

The filthy child rummaged around in his grubby hair to find the insect, it was a repulsive site.

As I got my nerve back I asked the boy who he was. He introduced himself as Burris Ewell. He wasn't too bright. I asked him how to spell his name. But the imbecile couldn't. I looked up my medical book to find how to get rid of cooties, before suggesting that he was to go home and wash his hair. Burris didn't like my suggestion that the other students might catch them. He stood up and glared at me. Only then I saw how dirty he really was. He was in dire need for a bath. There was no way he was coming into my classroom again like that.

"Burris, please bath yourself before you come back tomorrow," I said. The foul little thing laughed at me. He spoke in an uncouth manner,

"You ain't sendin' me home. I was about to of leave - I done my time for the year." I had no idea what he was talking about. He spoke as if he had done time in prison for a committed crime.

"He is one of the Ewell's, ma'am," a child told me. This explanation was the second of its kind I had received that day. I hadn't been in Maycomb