THE DOCTOR”S ASSISTANT

During the eye examination on Tuesday, Dr. Harf spoke in soft terms, naming what he found concerning my eye. The assistant wrote it all down. After he left the room, she told me she had been my student in humanities. What a lovely surprise. She was a beautiful girl and I asked if she were married. She had been and, a greater surprise, she had a 21-year-old son and was herself a grandmother. She appeared college age. How old I felt, thinking most of the time I am running around a campus myself.

She told about visiting an art museum in Amsterdam, where a large painting of a seascape she had seen a picture of in my class made quite an impression on her. She thought the artist’s name might have begun with an “R.” I did not think it was Renoir. The only artist’s name for a seascape that I recalled showing the class was one by Winslow Homer. At least, his name ends with an “R.”

Then she told my driver, who was with me, that I had been a good teacher and added, “She was hard.” That is about the best compliment a high school English teacher can hear, that she was hard.

♥