A Mess of Bad Puppies
From The Teacher’s Funeral, by Richard Peck
It was close and airless in the church before the female mourners got their cardboard fans going. Wasps droned in the window wells as people shuffled in, filling the pews. Beneath a spray of entirely white glads, the lid on the pine coffin stood open before us. It was without question Miss Myrt Arbuckle laid out within. She had the longest nose in North America. It stood up against the yawning lid, shiny and sharp with a flaring nostril. She had a snout on her long enough to drink water down a crawdad hole. […]
Doc Wilkinson was one of the pallbearers. As the saying goes, doctors bury their mistakes, and he may have been here to see it done. Doc rolled pills and busted boils …show more content…
“Miss Myrt was not one of us,” Preacher Parr recalled. “She served here only twenty-two years, a foreigner in our midst… She was an old maid and a teacher, so you couldn’t call her a full member of our community. But we done the best by her we could.”
“Oh yes, we built the Hominy Ridge School, a modern weatherboarded structure for her comfort and convenience, all with volunteer labor we gladly give…
“How many in this particular House of the Lord recollect the old schoolhouse that Hominy Ridge School replaced? Yes, sisters and brothers, the old schoolhouse, the first schoolhouse—the log schoolhouse, with its stick chimbley daubed with clay.”
That brought forth the first amen, in a cracked voice from the back.
“Who remembers the winds of January whistling in through the chinks in them pine logs?”
“Yo!” said Dad, suddenly his hand aloft.
“Who remembers how we young chilrun brought moss and branches to school every blessed morning in vain attempts to stuff the cracks in them everlasting logs against the frigid fury of winters like we don’t have …show more content…
We need somebody to blame.” (Wham)
“Without blame, there is no shame.” (Wham)
“Without shame, there is no humility!” (Double wham)
Preacher Parr shook a fist at heaven. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who put this woman in her coffin before her span was up?”
The congregation pondered, and I had a bad feeling I knew who.
“That’s right, mothers and fathers. Hear your hearts. It’s the degraded chilrun of this modern age who put Miss Myrt down like a lame horse. Chilrun ruined by ease. Chilrun who think they have every right to sit by the stove and hog the heat while their ears are deaf to learning. Young gals with bright bows in their hussy hair. Young boys with impure thoughts gnawing at their vitals!”
“The ungrateful!” (Wham)
“The unruly!” (Wham)
“The uncalled for!” (Wham)
“They are the authors of this woe! This generation of the young is one mess of bad puppies.”
Preacher Parr faltered and fell back. The amens liked to raise the roof. He put out a trembling hand to stem them. “I cain’t go on in the face of this injustice,” he said, husky-voiced,” the old at the mercy of the young. I turn to a finer spirit than I am, a greater talent than I
From The Teacher’s Funeral, by Richard Peck
It was close and airless in the church before the female mourners got their cardboard fans going. Wasps droned in the window wells as people shuffled in, filling the pews. Beneath a spray of entirely white glads, the lid on the pine coffin stood open before us. It was without question Miss Myrt Arbuckle laid out within. She had the longest nose in North America. It stood up against the yawning lid, shiny and sharp with a flaring nostril. She had a snout on her long enough to drink water down a crawdad hole. […]
Doc Wilkinson was one of the pallbearers. As the saying goes, doctors bury their mistakes, and he may have been here to see it done. Doc rolled pills and busted boils …show more content…
“Miss Myrt was not one of us,” Preacher Parr recalled. “She served here only twenty-two years, a foreigner in our midst… She was an old maid and a teacher, so you couldn’t call her a full member of our community. But we done the best by her we could.”
“Oh yes, we built the Hominy Ridge School, a modern weatherboarded structure for her comfort and convenience, all with volunteer labor we gladly give…
“How many in this particular House of the Lord recollect the old schoolhouse that Hominy Ridge School replaced? Yes, sisters and brothers, the old schoolhouse, the first schoolhouse—the log schoolhouse, with its stick chimbley daubed with clay.”
That brought forth the first amen, in a cracked voice from the back.
“Who remembers the winds of January whistling in through the chinks in them pine logs?”
“Yo!” said Dad, suddenly his hand aloft.
“Who remembers how we young chilrun brought moss and branches to school every blessed morning in vain attempts to stuff the cracks in them everlasting logs against the frigid fury of winters like we don’t have …show more content…
We need somebody to blame.” (Wham)
“Without blame, there is no shame.” (Wham)
“Without shame, there is no humility!” (Double wham)
Preacher Parr shook a fist at heaven. “I’ll ask you one more time. Who put this woman in her coffin before her span was up?”
The congregation pondered, and I had a bad feeling I knew who.
“That’s right, mothers and fathers. Hear your hearts. It’s the degraded chilrun of this modern age who put Miss Myrt down like a lame horse. Chilrun ruined by ease. Chilrun who think they have every right to sit by the stove and hog the heat while their ears are deaf to learning. Young gals with bright bows in their hussy hair. Young boys with impure thoughts gnawing at their vitals!”
“The ungrateful!” (Wham)
“The unruly!” (Wham)
“The uncalled for!” (Wham)
“They are the authors of this woe! This generation of the young is one mess of bad puppies.”
Preacher Parr faltered and fell back. The amens liked to raise the roof. He put out a trembling hand to stem them. “I cain’t go on in the face of this injustice,” he said, husky-voiced,” the old at the mercy of the young. I turn to a finer spirit than I am, a greater talent than I