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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Day after Day - Chapter 10
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Extended Work
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| Day after Day - Chapter 10 | |
| By jean.day | ||||||
| 31 May 2006 | ||||||
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August 18th dawned bright and beautiful – a perfect day for a picnic. The Tree family had a long established tradition of al fresco dining, so opening their garden to several new sets of families was not at all daunting. Warren Tree knew George Williams King, and he had also known Tom Stinton, so it was only their families that would be new to him, and he had already met May and Muriel, so that only left Tom Stinton the son, and Mrs. Stinton and Mrs. King. He had never met the Day family, but he had heard of Mr. Day and his work in the education department as an assistant inspector of primary schools. Soon everyone was intermingled in the lawn outside, with food and drink in abundance. His wife Julie was warmly welcoming, and especially enjoyed seeing a child baby, Bobs, who was just over a year old, and just starting to try to walk. Julie and Caroline instantly made friends, and they left the other children to sort themselves out. Una Day was the same sort of age as Carrie Tree, and of course Margaret, Jessie and Beth all knew May and Muriel from school. Harold and John stood to one side, and May and Muriel planned to disentangle themselves from their girl friends to try to establish more of a link with their new boy friends. The other Day boys, George, and Mark seemed to get along with the three younger Tree boys, so everything just took care of itself. Frank was soon to be sent to Warwick Grammar school and he was greatly looking forward to it, Charlie, who was very bright, but also very reserved was also being sent to a new school near London to prepared for the entrance exams to a public school such as Harrow, but he was dreading it. May went up to John, “How lovely to see you again. Will you soon be off to Oxford?” “Micklemas term is quite late starting, not til the very end of September. But with my clerical training I find I have much outside reading to do, so I keep busy.” Muriel was quite annoyed to see that May had got a head start on her, “And when are you off to Camborne, Harold?” she asked? “I start in the beginning of September. We put in many more weeks than the toffs at Oxford. I will go down the week before to find lodgings.” “What sort of courses did you have to take to qualify you for you to become a mining engineer?” asked Muriel. “I took Latin, French, Arithmetic, Addition Mathematics, Euclid and Scripture Knowledge for my lower certificate and have just qualified for the higher certificate in French, Elementary Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, Trigonometry, Statistics, Scripture Knowledge, and English essay.” “I did Greek and Latin at school,” said May, “but I can’t see that it will do me much good.” “What sorts of courses do you take to become a clergyman?” Muriel asked John. “Well, this last year I had to do four papers and I chose to do Israel from the beginning of the Exile to 4 B.C., The Gospels and Jesus, the development of the doctrine in the early church to 451 A.D. and God, Christ and Salvation. Each paper was 10,000 words, so all together it was almost like writing a book.” “Which College are you at?” “Hertford. It is located in Catte Street, directly opposite the main entrance of the Bodleian Library. The college was originally founded as Hart Hall in1281by Elias De Hertford. Some of our famous students include John Donne, the metaphysical poem, Thomas Hobbes, the political theorist and Willian Tyndale who first translated the Bible into English. We are great contenders in the annual college boat race. I hope you can come and see it sometime.” “Oh, I would love that. Do you have special parties or festivals?” asked Muriel. “We have a Ball after the end of term each year, and of course all the Colleges get involved for the May Day celebrations when Magdalen College has their choir on the bridge at the break of dawn. And many visitors come for the day and go punting on the Isis.” “I shall keep next May 1st free and hope you will remember that you invited me,” said Muriel. “I would like to come too. Perhaps you can find a friend to pair me up with,” said May. “I’m sure I can,” said John, “and I will of course write to you to let you know how things are going in relation to it.” Harold looked like he was trying to screw up his courage. “Will you write to me too?” he asked the girls. “Of course we will,” answered May for both of them. “I expect being so far away you won’t get home very often.” “Probably not til Christmas and then again in the summer,” said Harold. “I will check to see if we have any social occasions that I could invite you to come down for. I understand that Cornwall is a very attractive county.” Mr. Tree gathered the whole group together for a photograph before they began to leave. Muriel was very keen to learn to be a photographer herself so took close note of what he was doing. “Come now, boys,” said Mr. Day. “It is time we made a move home.” So the Days gathered together and went off back to their home in north Worcester. Just before they left, Mr. Tree called Muriel to one side. “I have heard back from my uncle James Arrowsmith regarding your great grandmother’s poems. He thinks they are very fine, but not quite up to the sort of quality that normally gets made into a poetry book on its own. He suggests you try to get them published, one by one in a lady’s magazine, the Women’s Home Companion perhaps or Harper’s Monthly Magazine. Another suggestion is that you could write to Arthur Quiller Couch at Oxford University. He brought out an anthology of poetry last year called the Oxford Book of English Verse, and he might have some useful advice for you.” Muriel couldn’t help but be disappointed, but she put a brave face on it. “Thank you for all your efforts, Mr. Tree. I will do those things you suggest and thank your uncle for me for his time taken over reading the poems.” May and Muriel and their families thanked the Trees for their hospitality and said that the next annual picnic would take place next August in Lansdown Crescent. All agreed that it was a very successful day, and May and Muriel were radiant as they went home.
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