Nothing much got done on a typical day. But a great deal can get done when you keep doing nothing much for ten years.
We were always supposed to get up early, before Dad left for work. We did this with little enthusiasm, because we had probably stayed up too late the night before. We read the Bible sleepily.
Mom kissed Dad goodbye in the doorway, letting in the cold air on our bare toes as we ate breakfast. After we ate, my brother was to take out the compost and garbages while I did the dishes. For many years we were supposed to then do a quick cleanup of the main rooms of the house, but this was seldom achieved.
More likely we would try to sneak off and read something before the day began--at eight, or whenever Mom made it to the school table. After our opening and the distribution of assignments, and some lamenting over how far behind we were, she would usually take advantage of her first opportunity to go upstairs and get dressed.
We would take advantage of the opportunity to do anything BUT our assignments until we heard her footstep on the creaking stairs, whereupon we would return to our places and pretend like we had been working away the whole time.
The phone would ring and Mom would try to keep us working with snapping fingers at us. After the phone call ended, someone's question would start us down a rabbit trail. Then Mom would fall asleep, which she did several times a day (she had narcolepsy), and we would ask her questions for the amusement value of hearing her talking in her sleep. We were not very kind to our mother, but sometimes we picked her flowers.
After lunch was the best part of the day. Mom read out loud for awhile, and then almost always fell asleep again. For safety reasons, we weren't allowed outside while she was asleep, so this was prime time to get out the legos, the blocks, or go up far, far away into the attic and read--legally, at last.
Once mom woke up we could go outside and play, unless she was feeling unusally moved to make sure we finished a day's worth of work. Even if the weather was too nasty for outside play, we could play on the porch or in the barn if we were all really getting on each other's nerves. Only on rare and painful occasions did schoolwork have to be done in the late afternoon or evening.
Somewhere in there we were supposed to practice the piano. We helped fix supper and clean it up. We read some more. Oddly enough, even though this year's textbooks where always shunned, I often thought those of future years were great fun to read. They had more to say--and I didn't have to answer those stupid questions at the end of the page.
We were always behind the schedule. The laundry room was always piled high with laundry, which we had to vault to get to the bathroom. We didn't always obey. Maybe not even usually. But we stayed out of major trouble, we learned in spite of it all, and we had fun.
As Dad used to say to Mom, "Well, even if you didn't teach them anything today, it was better than them going to public school and learning a lot of stuff that wasn't true." | 