A

The First Day of

School
NOTICE & NOTE Short Story by R. V. Cassill
As you read, use the side
margins to make notes
about the text. It’s the morning of the first day of school, but this
day isn’t like any other. What was it like for those
first brave students to integrate our schools?

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ANALYZE SETTING
Annotate:  In paragraph 2, mark
details of setting.
Analyze:  What does the setting
reveal about this stage of the plot?
1
T hirteen bubbles floated in the milk. Their pearl transparent
hemispheres1 gleamed like souvenirs of the summer days
just past, rich with blue reflections of the sky and of shadowy
greens. John Hawkins jabbed the bubble closest to him with
his spoon, and it disappeared without a ripple. On the white
surface there was no mark of where it had been.
2 “Stop tooling2 that oatmeal and eat it,” his mother said. She
glanced meaningfully at the clock on the varnished cupboard.
She nodded a heavy, emphatic affirmation3 that now the clock
was boss. Summer was over, when the gracious oncoming of
morning light and the stir of early breezes promised that time
was a luxury.

1
hemispheres (h≈m´ ∆-sfîrz´):  halves of a sphere, which is a three-dimensional circular, or
ball, shape.
2
tooling (t◊´l∆ng):  working with something, as with a tool such as a spoon.
3
affirmation (√f´∂r-m∑´sh∂n):  positive, strong support of the truth of something.

126 UNIT 2  COLLABORATE & COMPARE

 3 “Audrey’s not even down yet,” he said. Don’t forget to
Notice & Note as you
4 “Audrey’ll be down.”
read the text.
5 “You think she’s taking longer to dress because she wants to
look nice today?”
6 “She likes to look neat.”
7 “What I was thinking,” he said slowly, “was that maybe she ANALYZE PLOT AND
didn’t feel like going today. Didn’t feel exactly like it.” CHARACTER

8 “Of course she’ll go.” Annotate:  In paragraphs 3–12,

9 “I meant she might not want to go until tomorrow, maybe. mark the details that show you
John is worried and upset about
Until we see what happens.” something.
10 “Nothing’s going to happen,” his mother said.
Analyze:  What conflict is
11 “I know there isn’t. But what if it did?” Again John swirled introduced here? What stage of
the tip of his spoon in the milk. It was like writing on a surface the plot is this?
that would keep no mark.
12 “Eat and be quiet. Audrey’s coming, so let’s stop this here
kind of talk.”
13 He heard the tap of heels on the stairs, and his sister came
down into the kitchen. She looked fresh and cool in her white
dress. Her lids looked heavy. She must have slept all right—and
for this John felt both envy and a faint resentment. He had not resentment
really slept since midnight. The heavy traffic in town, the long (rΔ-z≈nt´m∂nt)  n. If you feel
resentment, you feel anger or
wail of horns as somebody raced in on the U.S. highway holding irritation.
the horn button down, and the restless murmur, like the sound
of a celebration down in the courthouse square, had kept him
VOCABULARY
awake after that. Each time a car had passed their house his
Thesaurus:  A thesaurus reveals
breath had gone tight and sluggish. It was better to stay awake
that synonyms for wail include
and ready, he had told himself, than to be caught asleep. cry, screech, howl, and lament.
14 “Daddy gone?” Audrey asked softly as she took her place Knowing a word’s synonyms
across the table from her brother. can help you better understand
the word.
15 “He’s been gone an hour,” their mother answered. “You
know what time he has to be at the mine.” Analyze:  Based on its synonyms,
what does the use of the word
16 “She means, did he go to work today?” John said. His voice
wail suggest about John’s feelings
had risen impatiently. He met his mother’s stout4 gaze in a about the horns he hears?
staring contest, trying to make her admit by at least some flicker
of expression that today was different from any other day. “I
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thought he might be down at Reverend Specker’s,” John said.

“Cal’s father and Vonnie’s and some of the others are going to be
there to wait and see.”
17 Maybe his mother smiled then. If so, the smile was so faint
that he could not be sure. “You know your father isn’t much of a
hand for waiting,” she said. “Eat. It’s a quarter past eight.”

4
stout (stout):  bold, brave, determined.

The First Day of School 127


Close Read Screencast
Listen to a modeled close
read of this text.
lament  about the weather. And still, John thought, its lamenting,
(l∂-m≈nt´)  v. If you lament, you
are wailing or crying as a way of
expressing grief.
ANALYZE SETTING
Annotate:  Mark details in
paragraphs 21–23 that help you
better understand the setting of
the story.
Analyze:  How does the time
period, the story’s cultural and
historical setting, affect John and
create conflict?
stealthily 
(st≈l´th∂-lΠ)  adv. To do something
stealthily is to do it quietly and
secretly.
128 UNIT 2  COLLABORATE & COMPARE
18 As he spooned the warm oatmeal into his mouth he heard
the rain crow calling again from the trees beyond the railroad
embankment. He had heard it since the first light came before
dawn, and he had thought, Maybe the bird knows it’s going to
rain, after all. He hoped it would. They won’t come out in the
rain, he had thought. Not so many of them, at least. He could
wear a raincoat. A raincoat might help him feel more protected
on the walk to school. It would be a sort of disguise, at least.
19 But since dawn the sun had lain across the green Kentucky
trees and the roofs of town like a clean, hard fire. The sky was as
clear as fresh-washed window glass. The rain crow was wrong
repeated call must mean something.
20 His mother and Audrey were talking about the groceries she
was to bring when she came home from school at lunch time. A
five-pound bag of sugar, a fresh pineapple, a pound of butter . . .
21 “Listen!” John said. Downtown the sound of a siren had
begun. A volley of automobile horns broke around it as if they
meant to drown it out. “Listen to them.”
22 “It’s only the National Guard, I expect,” his mother said
calmly. “They came in early this morning before light. And it
may be some foolish kids honking at them, the way they would.
Audrey, if Henry doesn’t have a good-looking roast, why then
let it go, and I’ll walk out to Weaver’s this afternoon and get
one there. I wanted to have something a little bit special for our
dinner tonight.”
23 So . . . John thought . . . she wasn’t asleep last night either.
Someone had come stealthily to the house to bring his parents
word about the National Guard. That meant they knew about
the others who had come into town, too. Maybe all through the
night there had been a swift passage of messengers through the
neighborhood and a whispering of information that his mother
meant to keep from him. Your folks told you, he reflected
bitterly, that nothing is better than knowing. Knowing whatever
there is in this world to be known. That was why you had to be
one of the half dozen kids out of some nine hundred colored5
© Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
of school age who were going today to start classes at Joseph
P. Gilmore High instead of Webster. Knowing and learning
the truth were worth so much they said—and then left it to
the hooting rain crow to tell you that things were worse than
everybody had hoped.
5
colored:  at the time in which the story is set, a term commonly used to describe Black
people. The term is now considered derogatory. Previously, Black children had been
required to attend their own separate schools.
 Don’t forget to
Notice & Note as you
read the text.

24 Something had gone wrong, bad enough wrong so the

National Guard had to be called out.
25 “It’s eight twenty-five,” his mother said. “Did you get that linger
snap sewed on right, Audrey?” As her experienced fingers (lΔng´g∂r)  v. To linger means to
leave slowly and reluctantly, not
examined the shoulder of Audrey’s dress they lingered a
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wanting to go.
moment in an involuntary, sheltering caress. “It’s all arranged,”
she told her children, “how you’ll walk down to the Baptist ANALYZE SETTING
Church and meet the others there. You know there’ll be
Annotate:  In paragraph 25, mark
Reverend Chader, Reverend Smith, and Mr. Hall to go with you. details about who will walk to
It may be that the white ministers will go with you, or they may school with John and his sister.
be waiting at school. We don’t know. But now you be sure, don’t Draw Conclusions:  Why is it
you go farther than the Baptist Church alone.” Carefully she necessary that the children are
lifted her hand clear of Audrey’s shoulder. John thought, Why walked to school by adults?
doesn’t she hug her if that’s what she wants to do?
26 He pushed away from the table and went out on the front
porch. The dazzling sunlight lay shadowless on the street
that swept down toward the Baptist Church at the edge of the
colored section. The street seemed awfully long this morning,
the way it had looked when he was little. A chicken was clucking
contentedly behind their neighbor’s house, feeling the warmth,
settling itself into the sun-warmed dust. Lucky chicken.

The First Day of School 129

 ANALYZE PLOT AND 27
CHARACTER
Annotate:  In paragraph 27,
mark words that show that a
flashback—the description of an
event that happened before the
story begins—has started. Then,
mark the words that signal the
flashback has ended.
Analyze:  How does the flashback
help you understand John’s
character?
28
29
30
31
130 UNIT 2  COLLABORATE & COMPARE
He blinked at the sun’s glare on the concrete steps leading
down from the porch. He remembered something else from
the time he was little. Once he had kicked Audrey’s doll buggy
down these same steps. He had done it out of meanness—for
some silly reason he had been mad at her. But as soon as the
buggy had started to bump down, he had understood how
terrible it was not to be able to run after it and stop it. It had
gathered speed at each step and when it hit the sidewalk it
had spilled over. Audrey’s doll had smashed into sharp little
pieces on the sidewalk below. His mother had come out of the
house to find him crying harder than Audrey. “Now you know
that when something gets out of your hands it is in the Devil’s
hands,” his mother had explained to him. Did she expect him
to forget—now—that that was always the way things went to
smash when they got out of hand? Again he heard the siren and
the hooting, mocking horns from the center of town. Didn’t his
mother think they could get out of hand?
He closed his eyes and seemed to see something like a doll
buggy bump down long steps like those at Joseph P. Gilmore
High, and it seemed to him that it was not a doll that was riding
down to be smashed.
He made up his mind then. He would go today, because
he had said he would. Therefore he had to. But he wouldn’t go
unless Audrey stayed home. That was going to be his condition.
His bargaining looked perfect. He would trade them one for
one.
His mother and Audrey came together onto the porch. His
mother said, “My stars, I forgot to give you the money for the
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groceries.” She let the screen door bang as she went swiftly back
into the house.
As soon as they were alone, he took Audrey’s bare arm
in his hand and pinched hard. “You gotta stay home,” he
whispered. “Don’t you know there’s thousands of people down
there? Didn’t you hear them coming in all night long? You slept,
didn’t you? All right. You can hear them now. Tell her you’re
sick. She won’t expect you to go if you’re sick. I’ll knock you
down, I’ll smash you if you don’t tell her that.” He bared his
teeth and twisted his nails into the skin of her arm. “Hear them
horns,” he hissed.
 32 He forced her halfway to her knees with the strength of his Don’t forget to
Notice & Note as you
fear and rage. They swayed there, locked for a minute. Her knee
read the text.
dropped to the porch floor. She lowered her eyes. He thought
he had won.
33 But she was saying something and in spite of himself he
NOTICE & NOTE
listened to her almost whispered refusal. “Don’t you know AHA MOMENT
anything? Don’t you know it’s harder for them than us? Don’t When you notice a sudden
you know Daddy didn’t go to the mine this morning? They laid realization that shifts a character’s
him off on account of us. They told him not to come if we went actions or understandings, you’ve
to school.” found an Aha Moment signpost.

34 Uncertainly he relaxed his grip. “How do you know all Notice & Note:  Mark new
information in paragraph 33.
that?”
35 “I listen,” she said. Her eyes lit with a sudden spark that Analyze:  How might this change
things?
seemed to come from their absolute brown depths. “But I don’t
let on all I know the way you do. I’m not a . . .” Her last word
sunk so low that he could not exactly hear it. But if his ear
missed it, his understanding caught it. He knew she had said
“coward.”
36 He let her get up then. She was standing beside him, serene
and prim when their mother came out on the porch again.
37 “Here, child,” their mother said to Audrey, counting the
dollar bills into her hand. “There’s six, and I guess it will be all
right if you have some left if you and Brother get yourselves a
cone to lick on the way home.” serene
(s∂-rΠn´)  adj. If you are serene,
38 John was not looking at his sister then. He was already you are calm and unflustered.
turning to face the shadowless street, but he heard the
unmistakable poised amusement of her voice when she said, poised
“Ma, don’t you know we’re a little too old for that?” (poizd)  adj. To be poised means
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to be calm and assured.

39 “Yes, you are,” their mother said. “Seems I had
forgotten that.”
40 They were too old to take each other’s hand, either, as they ANALYZE PLOT AND
CHARACTER
went down the steps of their home and into the street. As they
turned to the right, facing the sun, they heard the chattering Annotate:  Mark details in
paragraphs 40–44 that contribute
of a tank’s tread on the pavement by the school. A voice too
to the resolution of the story.
distant to be understood bawled a military command. There
Summarize:  What is the
were horns again and a crescendo6 of boos.
resolution, or final outcome,
41 Behind them they heard their mother call something. It was of the story?
lost in the general racket.
42 “What?” John called back to her. “What?”

6
crescendo (kr∂-sh≈n´d∫):  a slow, gradual increase in volume, intensity, or force.

The First Day of School 131

 43
ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
What keeps people
from giving up?
44
Review your notes and
add your thoughts to your
Response Log.
132 UNIT 2  COLLABORATE & COMPARE
She had followed them out as far as the sidewalk, but not
past the gate. As they hesitated to listen, she put her hands to
either side of her mouth and called to them the words she had
so often used when she let them go away from home.
“Behave yourselves,” she said.
TURN AND TALK
With a partner, discuss your ideas about what convinces John
to go to school, despite his fears of what may happen. What
gives him the strength to stand up to this challenge?
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