“When Irish eyes are smiling
It’s like a day in spring;
In the lilt of Irish laughter
You can hear the angels sing…”
So begins a lovely Irish song, but there was no smile in the eyes of Mother St. Paul, our Irish Boarding Mistress as she regarded the 14-year-old girl standing before her. “Do you hear me Tamara,” she said sternly. “Give me that scrapbook this very minute. You are not going to get it back again."
“But Mother..,” began Tamara tearfully. “Not another word,” said Mother. “I’m sick and tired of this cowboy craze of yours. I’ve warned you before and now I catch you red-handed writing cowboy songs during the study period. So, hand over that book, now.”
It was the era of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Their cowboy songs were aired constantly over the radio and their records were on sale in all the music shops. We all loved their songs - I remember my own favourite was ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ but Tamara was in a class by herself.
She lived and moved in an imaginary world entirely populated by Cowboys and Cowgirls. Whether awake or asleep, eating or drinking, Tamara moved in the atmosphere of a Texan ranch.
All along verandahs and up and down the stairs, you could hear Tamara singing or humming cowboy songs, till even the rest of us got a bit tired of it. Fortunately, she couldn’t yodel!
Tamara’s prized possession was her cowboy scrapbook. In it she pasted colourful pictures of her Cowboy heroes and copied down the words of their songs. She carried this treasure all over with her and hid it surreptitiously whenever a teacher approached her desk in the classroom.
But this time she had tested her luck, once too often, and now Mother St. Paul had confiscated her beloved scrapbook.
In the weeks that followed we felt genuinely sorry for Tamara. She went around with a doleful expression on her usually cheerful face and the boarding became a strangely silent place.
Some weeks passed and one Saturday we came out of the refectory after tea, to find Mother St. Paul arranging her writing table.
She appeared to be in a cheerful mood. “Well, let me see what I have here,” said Mother pulling out a truly weird assortment of items from the cupboard and placing them on her table. There was a water-pistol, a rubber snake, marbles and packets of bubble-gum.
We saw a number of the younger boarders hovering hopefully around the desk, for these were all items that Mother St. Paul had confiscated at one time or another. Since Mother was in a good mood, the owners hoped they would get back some of their possessions.
There were cries of delight and heartfelt ‘thank yous’ as Mother handed over the objects to the owners with words of warning. “And now what on earth is this..” said Mother pulling out a bulky object from the desk drawer. It was Tamara’s scrapbook. We watched with interest as Tamara, who was waiting almost fearfully at the very edge of the group, inched forward and looked wordlessly at Mother. Mother St. Paul gazed at her quizzically for a long moment and then relented.
“Alright Tamara, you can have your scrapbook, but,” she added with finality, “I don’t want to hear the word ‘cowboy’ ever again.”“No Mother, never,” said Tamara earnestly shaking her head till her black curls bounced. Mother handed the book to an ecstatic girl.
“Thank you, thank you, and Oh Mother,” cried Tamara, “You’re the sweetest girl in Texas the cowboys ever knew!”
Mother St. Paul’s brown eyes twinkled as she threw back her head and the sound of Irish laughter filled the room.
In last week’s column, St. Agnes Convent was mistakenly printed as St. Anne’s. |
E-mail