94 A Bridge To The Past

REMINISCING BY A FORMER TEACHER

When I look back at my teaching experience in Wilmot, I am inclined to be embarrassed. It was a first-rate example of the blind leading the blind. I had completed the first year at Prince of Wales College and was terribly impressed with my vast amount of learning. I sincerely hope that my students in Wilmot have forgiven me for the misinformation that I so con- fidently handed out. However since I was supposed to be passing rich on a salary of about $450.00 a year, the community got just about what they were paying for!

Nothing very exciting happened in school. The pupils were a well- behaved and rather pleasant lot, and I still remember them as friendly and about as eager to learn as the usual youngsters would be. The school includ- ed grades one to ten. Katherine Clark was the very gracious grade ten pupil, while a very shy and very beautiful Beth Waugh had the honour of holding down grade one. Somewhere in between, in grade five I think, came my two favourites, Marjorie Clark and Dorothy I-Iogg. They were mischievous little devils, full of life and bubbling over with energy and aware, I’m sure, that they frequently got away with more than they should have. Others included Jean Curtis who had charming freckles and beautiful auburn hair, Annie and Eunice J ardine, Audrey and Georgie Clark and their brother Ewen, and many other little Clarks and Hoggs and Sobeys whose names I can’t recall.

Things have changed mightily since then. In those days we had no paved roads and no roads were plowed during the winter. As a result cars were stored from mid-November till mid-May. All winter travel was by horse or on foot, almost always painfully slow and just as painfully cold. During the first winter of my stay in Wilmot, l boarded with the Sobey family, who lived directly across the road from the school. They made my stay very enjoyable and somewhat exciting at times. The local postoffice was located in their kitchen and one of Mr. Sobey’s duties was to meet the evening train at the New Annan siding and pick up the mail bags. Sometimes he delayed his departure for the mail until it was almost a neck- and-neck race with the train. I’ve seen him half standing in the sleigh with the horse at full gallop toward New Arman, surrounded with a cloud of snow, and reminding me of Jehu except that he had a sleigh instead of a chariot. Back in the house we would stand at the window waiting to see him appear over the hill with the mail; if he didn’t, it meant that he had missed the train and would have to go on to Kensington to pick up the mail bags at the station there, but he very seldom missed! Both Mr. Sobey and his son