Pompey Hollow

Last week there was no school in Pompey Hollow. Pert, pretty Esther De Lee, who used to teach in the little upstate New York hamlet, was staring defiantly across a courtroom in nearby Syracuse. Glowering back at her was James N. Armstrong, Pompey Hollow's lean, sallow school trustee. Every one of Pompey Hollow's twelve schoolchildren was in the courtroom. So too were their parents, their parents' friends, Miss De Lee's friends and Mr. Armstrong's friends.

That accounted for practically all Pompey Hollow except the drudges who had to stay home for the chores.

It all began last autumn at a Hallowe'en party in Pompey Hollow's snug little one-room schoolhouse, after the party rowdies stole a halyard from the school flagpole. Trustee Armstrong hung the flag in an alcove near a small oil stove where the pupils warmed their lunches. Worried lest the big flag catch fire, Miss De Lee took it down, pinned up a small one. Mr. Armstrong, infuriated, tore down the small flag, ordered the big one up again. Next day there was no flag at all and the small one was in the coal bin. "Hang the big flag where I say," stormed the trustee. "Go home and mind your own business," shrilled the teacher. "You're through," cried the trustee.

By last week 15 of Pompey Hollow's 19 families had lined up with Miss De Lee, petitioned the State Department of Education to remove their trustee. For his part, Mr. Armstrong bolstered his case by a new list of grievances. Miss De Lee had been insubordinate. She recited the wrong version of the Lord's Prayer. She forbade the singing of "America." She arrived late and slept during school hours. She kept animals in the schoolroom. She taped the lips of naughty pupils.

Cheering, stamping, climbing over desks and chairs, Miss De Lee's partisans packed the Syracuse courtroom so tight for the State hearing on her reinstatement plea that one oldster fainted and Ward Van De Bogart Jr., 7, who once had his lips taped for whispering, fell sound asleep. Star witness was Ward's big brother Edward. "What did your brother do after the plaster was put on his lips?" Edward was asked. "He started studying," replied the witness. Loyal pupils testified that Trustee Armstrong himself had placed the small flag in the coal bin, that they had not recited the oath of allegiance regularly since Miss De Lee left. Tightly clasping an American Beauty rose, Miss De Lee took the stand to deny that she was a Communist, quote from a teachers' syllabus in defense of her practice of admitting pet hens and rabbits to the classroom. Said she, "I asked Mr. Armstrong if he thought we were breathing fowl air." Superintendent George T. Fuggle of the Pompey Hollow School District put in a judicious word. The dismissal, Mr. Fuggle felt, was unjustified.

Best that Trustee Armstrong could do in the way of witnesses was to call his own daughter, Mary Grace, who blithely contradicted her classmates, blamed Ward Van De Bogart for putting the flag in the coal bin.

Back to Pompey Hollow that night, long after milking time, trekked the 19 families. This week, pending a decision which might be months in coming, the hamlet went back to work. School opened with its third teacher since Esther De Lee was dismissed.

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