Chewing gum a filthy habit according to Miss Crosby

Posted Jan 26, 2012 By Mary Cook

EMC Lifestyle - Gum was forbidden by Miss Crosby. Not only in the Northcote School, but within a country mile of the school yard! Chewing gum was right up there with swearing or telling a lie, both of which could earn you a good strapping if caught. Miss Crosby called chewing gum a "filthy habit."

Now, Two Mile Herman didn't pay much attention to the rules at the Northcote School. Oh, he didn't really swear...sometimes he said "darn", and he only lied if it was absolutely necessary. But he was known to talk out loud after we were in our seats, which was forbidden, and it took him forever to get down to work after prayers and singing God Save the King, both of which he was known to ignore taking part in.

Two Mile Herman loved gum. Wrigley's came in sticks in green wrappers, and it was rumoured that Two Mile Herman spent every cent on gum at Briscoe's General Store that ever came his way.

He was known to cram three or four sticks in his mouth at one time. And he chewed it with his mouth wide open, so you could always see a big wad of Wrigley's swishing around his teeth.

It was a cold winter's day when the whole subject of Two Mile Herman's love of gum caused such an uproar at the Northcote School, that it was forever after known as the "day Two Mile Herman got caught with his pants down."

You could find wads of gum all over the school that Two Mile stashed for later chewing. If he had to get rid of it in a hurry, he could poke it into the door jam, under a window sill where no one could see it, and Cecil said he knew for a fact there was enough gum under Two Mile's seat and desk to fill a milk can. Of course, he could retrieve it too. And it wasn't beyond him, on his way out the door, to be seen, without even looking at it, to reach out and grab the wad he had placed there an hour or so before. He never lost track of where he had stuck the last mouthful.

Well, one day, it was if he had taken leave of his senses. He was rolling a big lump of gum around in his mouth when Miss Crosby had ordered us to our seats for morning prayer.

I heard Cecil whisper loud enough that he could be heard two rows over... "Two Mile...your gum." I saw Two Mile put three fingers in his mouth, grab the gum, and press it onto the leg of his overalls.

It was the custom at the Northcote School, for Miss Crosby to ask one of the pupils to come forward and lead in singing God Save the King. The prayer was over, and as luck would have it, she called out Herman's name. He either forgot about the gum on his leg, or he figured it was too late to do anything about it. By now it was pretty well anchored to his overall just above his knee.

Of course, it didn't take Miss Crosby more than a split second to spot the gum. She let a roar out of her that could be heard in Douglas and demanded to know where the gum came from. Well, if nothing else, Two Mile Herman was a quick thinker. He looked down at his leg as if he had never laid eyes on it before.

The teacher ordered him out into the cloak room, which wasn't really a room at all, just a partition separating the school room from the doorway. He was made to take off his overalls, and Miss Crosby followed him with the scissors. "Now, scrape it off," she bellowed. None of us dared turn around in our seats to watch the performance, but we knew he would be out there standing in his long underwear.

My sister Audrey, in Senior Fourth, wondered if Miss Crosby was more mad about the gum, or over wasting most of the morning. At any rate, Two Mile Herman emerged eventually with his overalls back on, and the gum was gone. Audrey said Miss Crosby was too worn out to administer the strap, and eventually, the school room returned to normal.

Then it was time for recess. Of course, we all headed back to the cloak room to get our coats. Two Mile Herman was the first to grab his off a hook. I couldn't believe my eyes. He had stashed his wad of gum on the underpart of the board that held the hooks, and when he left the school to play outside, the gum was back in his mouth, swishing around as if it had never left it.