She was the first teacher we had that loved books, and loved to read to us. She read Charlotte’s Web, Island of the Blue Dolphin, And Now Miguel, and her favorite, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.

Until fourth grade my teachers all retired the year after I had them (I’ve always assumed this was a coincidence). But in fourth grade we got a teacher just two years out of college. Mrs. Jordan was quiet, smiled a lot, and had luminous brown eyes. We boys were all mortally wounded by the crush we had on her, even though she was so much older than we were (24, more than twice our age). She was the first teacher we had that loved books, and loved to read to us. She read Charlotte’s Web, Island of the Blue Dolphin, And Now Miguel, and her favorite, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. She also made us memorize poems. Most of them I don’t remember, although Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening was one. The one I can still recite is this one by Housman:

 

Loveliest of trees the Cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

 

Now of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score

It only leaves me fifty more.

 

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodland I will go

To see the Cherry hung with snow.

Every spring I remember that line about the Cherry being hung with snow. It is an obvious metaphor, one that can not be missed in northern Virginia. Even now in late April when the dogwoods have taken center stage there are still snow-laden cherry trees to be seen. And when the wind is harsh, and the blossom petals blow, they look like the kind of large flakes that promise good sledding. At the time I memorized it though, what seemed neat to my ten year old mind was the math in the poem. I learned that a score meant twenty, and that there was a different way to count things. It also made sense of the Gettysburg Address.