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Mari Tomasi
LIVIMG Oi THE HILL
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She was taking care of the Alexander babies for the afternoon. The
three Alexanders sat on the lawn, their legs straight out in front of then,
their baeks to a hedge of purple and white phlox. Ann, a few feet away,
was toseL., thea a rubber ball. LI plaid playsuit, her head a cluster of
tight black curls, she might have been of graded school age.
"I graduated from Spaulding High last June," Ann said. "Office work
is what I wanted typing and shorthand, but there're few openings here
in Sarre. I've applied several places. They all say they'll keep me in
mind. That's all it amounts to, I guess. Two of my classmates got IPA
jobs in Montpelier. I tried. They said I'd have to be certified.
"Maybe they did right in not certifying me. I eau think of plenty
who need the money more than I do. We're not on easy street, but an got along.
I don't mind this work. It's what I've been used to. At home, I mean.
Only here I get paid for it. I live with, an aunt and uncle on the Hill.
They've five Children. rwo are young enough to have some one watch them
most of the time. My mother died when I was born, and my father died
three years ago. I've always lived with my aunt.
"I think I'll go in training this winter, that is, if I don't find
a good job soon. I'd like to go to the DtGoesbriand Hospital in Burlington.
But Aunt Edith wants me to go here at the Barre Hospital. I suppose if I
do that I'll be stuck in town for the rest of my life. Most of the graduates
start nursing here and they stay right on. Few of than get jobs in other
States, but that means taking State board's in whatever State you plan to
practice in. A friend of mine who gets through next month is planning to
go on general duty up on the Hill. The Green Mountain Sanatorium. I
S.
'wouldn't like that. It would be awfully depressing taking sere of T.S.
patients all the time. I had ea uncle died up there.
"I miss Nigh Sehool. It used to be fee. In the winter we'd have
dances after the basketball games. One. upon a time every Mentpillier-
Barre game meant a fight. Sometimes the players'd fight; sometimes the
spectators; sometimes both. When Aarre'd win we'd have celebrations
bonfires and parades. I vas on the girl's basketball teen my Junior year.
Last year I had to have my tonsils out, and I no sooner got bask to school
than I got infection in my left foot. That kept me away free all sports
for the winter. Couldn't even skate, and I love that. We have three
rinks here. Usually my erred goes to the rink near $t. Mieniees cherish,
that's in our neighborhood. A bigger gong goes to the Northam! rink.
There's a ski -tow across from the Barre Country Club. It's a pretty good
slope. Last year there were to many people there to let you enjoy your-
self.
'Last Sunday we had a Legion musioesta. All the Legion bands in
Washington Comity oempeted. It was pretty geed. They held it at the
looreation field. They must have made plenty of money. By nine o'clock
you could hardly find a pleas to park a ear, and the field is big.
Governer Aiken was guest of honor. A Legiomnaire from, Rutland, I think,
spoke. I. was good. Me told about the Loris= nurses who lost their
lives fusing the war, and he said there were about two hundred of them flat
on their basks in government hospitals throughout the country. They'll never
be able to walk again because of injuries received during the World Ear.
I'd never thought of nurses losing their lives in that war. Of eourse,
I knew nurses went over and that they did good work, but I never pictured
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Ulm dying as I have the soldiers. Silly, isn't it? Memorial Day and
Armistiso Day I always thought of the soldiers, but never of the nurses.
With ail this talk ef war it slakes you think, doesn't it1
"It's been a sort of dull summer. About the only thing you oast do
in go to the movies there're three nevi. houses in town or go for a
milk. I like the pond and lake donee., but I don't got to many of them,
my aunt sort of puts her foot down about getting in late. There's a
dans* hall they use for roller Waiting, it's halfway between Montpelier
and Barre. I've only been there twiee.
"I learned to skate up him* of the quarries," Ann said. "On a small
frog pond that was stinking green slime in the summer. All the neighbor-
hood kids used to skate there. They still do. When tier", fairly well
grown they o. ms down to the larger rinks in Barre where there's more
excitement.
is used to swim in an old abandoned quarry on the sill. That water
allays felt cooler than any other I've been in. The granite walls shade
it and keep it cool. On hot summer days we'd have fights, arguing over
voted *lain the pool for the day, the boys or the girls. The boys used
to go without their suits; it we saw that the pool 11111A already taken
over by then we'd go bask home and sulk. We'd have to sneak secretly to
the quarry. If any grownups saw us with our bathing suits tusked under
our arms and headed for the quarry, they'd make sure to step by the homes
and tell our people. We'd all bean gives orders at hems not to swim in
the quarry. It got so we'd °hang* into our bathing suits at home and
wear our dresses x- then until we were safely at the quarry.
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"There aren't as many accidents at the quarries as you'd expect. A
couple of years ago a little boy was killed in on of them. Ned been
playing with older friends emir the lodge of the quarry. He slipped, and
rolled, and fell over the rim. That accident put a stop to the younger
children playing near the pits.
"The crowd we played with were all from quarrymen,' families." We'd
gang up on the minister's kids and the school teacher's daughter. We'd
earn thee away from our pet pool, and keep them from our games. We were
meant We thought because our fathers worked in the quarries we could
enjoy more privilekos than they. And we thought that because our fathers
did more dangerous work than theirs that we were entitled to more dangerous
games. When we were grown we got over that. In fact, that school teacher's
daughter is now one of my closest friends.
W. always hoard granite -talk at home. And we'd listen to the men
when they'd gather at the general store. They'd talk quarrying and polities,
politics and quarrying. They'd never get sick of it. oy aunt still talks
about the Sunday she ran out of salt as she was getting dinner. She sent
Dad to tho general store it used to be open Sundays- and he didn't get
back for an hour and a half. We'd all eaten a flat dinner, and my aunt
was doing the dishes when he cams in with the salt. My older cousin liked
to hoar the nen talk abut the old...time quarry owners, the first 'granite
kings'. Be heard so nuoh about them that he thought they were gods. My
aunt says that whoa he was seven years old he was 00404 in Sunday school
class, who made the world. He answered, 'Old Jia
"Alvin ...that's another cousin always said he was going to be a quarry-
man, but the folks talked him out of it. He travels in Mew 'fork now. Sales-
man for a Barre granite firm. He likes it. It was the glamour and danger of
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quarrying that appealed to him when he was a kid.
eI remember ens night when we were kids, my uncle gams home from
work feeling unusually tired.
'Get my slippers, Al,' he said.
"Ai vent after then, but he sulked and said,'Goes Cad, why don't you
get them yourself..- Ism just as tired as you are--'
*My aunt reminded him that he hadn't been working in a quarry all day
like Dad•
s'Oh, not' he said. And he showed them his blistered hands, and told•
them that he and his friends were starting a quarry of their own up back
of the frogpend. They'd been working at it for a week.
'My uncle was seared, thinking they had climbed down into some
abandoned quarry. Be put on his shoes and insisted that Alvin take hie
to his 'quarry' right away. It proved to be a hole only two feet deep and
six fort square, and so muddy from being near the frogpond that my uncle
had to demand that they 'start' their quarry in some other spot. It was
halidess fun for then. They'd start a new 'quarry' every summer. they'd
dig for about two weeks and then give up.
"rather had been in the quarries since he was twenty. Be same here
then with his family. 'rem Canada. Some little plass near Montreal. I
never can remember the name. Grandfather was a carpenter. Grandmother ran
a boarding house on the hill for a few years. I must have been quite young,
I only remember the house we're in now. My aunts. Grandfather built most
of that himself. But I've seen the old boarding house. It's still stand..
lug. A rickety old thing with two tiers of sagging porches. It's so
close to the read that it gets all the dust frost the traffie. It's an
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apartment house now.
"I vent to the graded school on the hill; I came to Barre for high
school. That's when the Rill began to lose its attraction. I had no
further use for it, neither for skiing nor for skating. We'd skate on a
rink at the South bnd of Barre, or an the rivers back of the ice -house.
That ice -house was burned to the ground yesterday. Two ice..heuses„
really. They estimate the loss at about $40,000. Three thousand tons of
ice were destroyed. I wish I had seen the fire. It's hard to picture an
iee-house burning down.
The ice -houses belonged to two Barre men. Syrians. We've a small
Syrian settlement in Barre. Most of them have done well. They've started
with small grocery stores, and now many of than own valuable property on
the main street. The businessblock that was burned two months ago was owned
by Syrians, too.
I went to Syrian classmates funeral once. They don't keep the
bodies at home or in an undertaking establishment. Here in Barre the
family usually hires the Odd Follows' Ball, and the body is kept there. I
think every Syrian in the State show, up for the funeral, regardless of
whither they knew the dead person or not. The third night they have a wake.
Bach mourner brings his awn food. Fruit, cake, meat. They spend the night
eating and mourning. One person will start chanting the praises of the
dead man or woman; the rest pick up the sing -song, and wail every good
deed the dead person has to his credit. It's enough to convince you that
the dead person must have been a saint. The prayere are sung too. They
have a large display of flowers. Most of the funerals are held from the
Catholic churoh.*