William Marvel: Old Pine Tree

Someone who never attended Pine Tree School recently challenged my more unpleasant memories of the place, prompting more reflection. Indeed, four of my six years there were relatively pleasant. Elsie Masterton, my first- and second-grade teacher, seemed downright grandmotherly. I came to her already reading and writing, and sometimes she had to discipline me for boredom-induced infractions, but otherwise she was always very kind.

I recall little about the third and fourth grades, taught by Celia Kennett, but in the fifth grade I fell into the clutches of Betty Walker. This was obviously not the Betty Walker who once taught at Fryeburg’s Snow School, whom I would have recognized by the wings and halo. This was a woman to be dreaded. The only choices were to suck up to her as submissively as possible or endure the humiliation with which she maintained control. She clearly disliked boys and favored girls, and discussions with survivors of her earlier years suggest that I didn’t just catch her at a bad stage of life.