A free country? they asked. You should live so long. What's free about it, they reasoned, when the law forces you to educate your children and then endangers their lives to get them into school?
Betty SmithStichwörter: vaccination
If I can fix every detail of this time in my mind, I can keep this moment always.
Betty SmithFrancie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction.
If she had not found this outlet in writing, she might have grown up to be a tremendous liar.
When the children were ready to go to bed, Katie did something very unusual. It was unusual because she was not a demonstrative woman. She held the children close to her and kissed them goodnight.
"From now on" she said ,"I am your mother and your father.
Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn't happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?
Betty SmithStichwörter: imagination growing-up dreams hope leaving brooklyn
I never listen to what people tell me and I can't read. The only way I
know what is right and wrong is the way I feel about things. If I feel bad, it's wrong. If I feel good, it's right.
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.
Betty SmithStichwörter: life religion chemistry
She liked numbers and sums. She devised a game in which each number was a family member and the “answer” made a family grouping with a story to it. Naught was a babe in arms. He gave no trouble. Whenever he appeared you just “carried” him. The figure 1 was a pretty baby girl just learning to walk, and easy to handle; 2 was a baby boy who could walk and talk a little. He went into family life (into sums, etc.) with very little trouble. And 3 was an older boy in kindergarten, who had to be watched a little. Then there was 4, a girl of Francie’s age. She was almost as easy to “mind” as 2. The mother was 5, gentle and kind. In large sums, she came along and made everything easy the way a mother should. The father, 6, was harder than the others but very just. But 7 was mean. He was a crotchety old grandfather and not at all accountable for how he came out. The grandmother, 8, was hard too, but easier to understand than 7. Hardest of all was 9. He was company and what a hard time fitting him into family life!
When Francie added a sum, she would fix a little story to go with the result. If the answer was 924, it meant that the little boy and girl were being minded by company while the rest of the family went out. When a number such as 1024 appeared, it meant that all the little children were playing together in the yard. The number 62 meant that papa was taking the little boy out for a walk; 50 meant that mama had the baby out in the buggy for an airing and 78 meant grandfather and grandmother sitting home by the fire of a winter’s evening. Each single combination of numbers was a new set-up for the family and no two stories were ever the same.
Francie took the game with her up into algebra. X was the boy’s sweetheart who came into the family life and complicated it. Y was the boy friend who caused trouble. So arithmetic was a warm and human thing to Francie and occupied many lonely hours of her time.
Do you hear that, Francie? You're in college! 'oh gosh, I feel sick.
Betty SmithWell, there's a little bit of man in every woman and a little bit of woman in every man.
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