Reading Notes W9: Fisher, Part B

The intramural complexities of the faculty at Miss Huntingdon's School for Girls have become much clearer to me since I left, but even at sixteen I knew that Mrs. Cheever's social position was both uncomfortable and lonely (Fisher, 565).

She had her own office, which was certainly more than any snobbish Latin teacher could boast. She was listed as part of the school's administration in the discreet buff and sepia catalog; I cannot remember now just what her title was, except it implied with high-sounding ambiguity that she was the housekeeper without, of course, using that vulgar word itself (Fisher, 565).

She was a college graduate, even though it was from some domestic science school instead of Smith or Mount Holyoke. She was above all, a lady (Fisher, 565).

She was almost a super-lady, mainly because it was so obvious that the rest of the faculty, administration as well as teachers, considered her a cook. When she stepped occasionally after dinner into the library, where as an honor Sophomore was privileged to carry demitasses to the Seniors and the teachers on alternate Wednesday nights, I could see that she was snubbed almost as thoroughly as her well-fed colleagues snubbed the school nurse, one notch below the housekeeper on the social scale but also a colleague as far as the catalog went (Fisher, 566).

Hicks, Jack, et al. “The First Oyster.” The Literature of California, vol. 1, University of California Press, 2000, pp. 565–574.