A 3rd-grade teacher expands her rural students’ view of the world — and of themselves.

For one thing, Mrs. Swanson was old. Her hair was white, and she was large and lumbering with a huge bosom. She wore glasses on a chain and clunky shoes. She rubbed my father the wrong way with her ideas of “drawing children out,” and I drank his prejudice without a second thought.

Years later, I would see it so differently.

Seeing the world

In the late ‘60s, in tiny Tripoli, Wisconsin — not even a hamlet, just the dregs of the lumber industry and some small, rocky farms — people were poor. Those who had telephones (unlike my family) had party lines. But in the 3rd-grade classroom, on top of a low bookshelf, Mrs. Swanson had installed two fascinating rotary-dial phones that we used to practice telephone manners. I learned from her to pick up a ringing phone and say, “This is the Kurth residence. To whom am I speaking?” All the while, I hoped that, someday, on the other end of the line, I’d connect with the bigger world.

Mrs. Swanson’s classroom also offered a little table and wooden chairs where she laid out thick hardcover books, serious books with small orange horses or automobiles on the borders and rough, uneven edges. Among them were Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell, and a strange and sad book called At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald, as well as an array of novels by Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

Whenever I got a chance, I went to the table and picked up a book, but there was never enough time to finish reading during class. So, one day, before we lined up to go out to the yellow school bus, I slid a book beneath my winter coat and carried it home. Then another. And another.

As the supply of books on the table dwindled, Mrs. Swanson took notice. Pointing to the empty table, she asked, “Did someone borrow those books? Now nobody else can read them. If you bring them back, there won’t be any punishment.” One by one, beneath my winter coat, I brought the books back, and, when I thought no one was looking, returned them to the table. I have a vague memory of a classmate catching me and of lying vehemently in the face of the accusation

But I don’t think Mrs. Swanson was fooled. One day, she questioned me: “Can you read these books? Which ones do you like the best?” Forgetting I needed to hide my theft, I rhapsodized about those books and what they said and asked questions about some puzzling words. Of course she knew I’d been the one to take the books home, but she kept our little secret.

Besides sharing books with us, Mrs. Swanson also shared music. Sometimes, she would play a record and have us act out the songs. In one song about a workhorse, a line went “I pull, pull, pull the wagon all day long.” And, in a circle, we pulled, pulled, pulled slowly, just like the workhorses my father used for “skidding pulp” — the term for dragging lumber.

I knew those workhorses well, but another song about carriage horses “with a high-stepping, high-stepping, high-stepping walk, with a high-stepping high-stepping walk” captured my desires so much better. I was so caught up in the fantasy of that high-stepping walk that I might have someday that I continued prancing into the next song.

And being seen

Our tiny rural school had a student of surpassing artistic talent, Vicky. Whatever she painted, I copied to the best of my ability, but Mrs. Swanson suggested I draw my own ideas. I was discouraged because nothing I drew compared to Vicki’s masterpieces. I was always looking for things to be proud of at the time. In one instance, we did a self-portrait in which I colored my blonde hair yellow because I was proud to be blonde. My mother would often declare to friends and neighbors, “She’s our only blonde,” and I clung to that distinction. But Mrs. Swanson pointed out that even blonde hair includes other colors, like tans and browns. Disappointed, I resisted. I wanted no trace of brown among the blonde. Poverty already told me I was nothing much, and I couldn’t stand to be reminded of what I perceived as deficiencies, even minor ones.

My fear of being without came up again on the last day of school. Back then, public school events were the focal point of rural life, and children dressed up for the last day of school. Poor as we were, my mother had to scrimp and save just to make a dress for me. I don’t know where she got that shiny, light-green fabric, but it was just right for my complexion. Her sewing machine must have been on the blink because she made it all by hand. Proudly, I wore it to school, only to hear my friend Vicky say, “It’s nice, but the neckline’s a little awkward.” I wasn’t sure what “awkward” meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. I was crushed.

Mrs. Swanson came up to us. “What a beautiful dress!” she said as if she hadn’t heard Vicky. “Where did you buy it?”

Surprised and pleased that she thought it was store-bought, I said, “My mother made it.”

“Did she? I can’t believe it. It’s so lovely, and you look so pretty in it.”

Soon I was shining like the fabric of my dress.

I think it was on that final day of school that Mrs. Swanson handed me a heavy paper bag as we lined up to board the yellow school bus: “For you to keep,” she said.

I peeked inside: It contained all the books I’d taken home, all those hardcover classics with uneven edges and orange and green horses and automobiles on the cover. I probably said an obligatory thank-you, thinking greedily of the books, not her kindness.

I lost those books in my family’s many moves, but not before I’d read them all half a dozen times. Sometimes at a thrift store, I’ll see editions like that. Hans Brinker or Heidi with those rough, uneven edges. How quaint and dear they look to me.

Now I’m a teacher, too. Sometimes I think of all the decades that pass before we recognize and honor gifts. If it’s possible to connect with the spirit world, I send out my thank-you, belatedly, to Mrs. Swanson.