It Takes A Heap Of Living …

My third grade teacher had a thing for poetry.  Mrs. Arndt.  Back when putting the “r” in Mrs. did not offend anyone.

This poetry assignment was brutal. Memorize “Home” by Edgar A. Guest. Mrs. Arndt must have enjoyed torture. “Home” was not a four-liner. The first verse had almost 100 words and there were three other verses. Why in the world would any teacher inflict such agony on a class of third-graders?

And, Mr. Guest did not make the assignment any easier.  “Home” was written in a form of dialect that was difficult to read, much less memorize.  The last two lines are a good example:

          Ye’ve got t’ love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome:

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

Thank goodness Mrs. Arndt gave us a translated version to memorize with full words we could read and understand.  But that made the assignment only slightly easier.

Why in the world?  Why memorize a poem that most likely would be forgotten shortly after standing in front of classmates and embarrassing yourself as you try to remember the words?

I do recall we had several days to memorize the poem – mighty nice of Mrs. Arndt.  I also remember getting totally frustrated in the evenings at home.  I prayed Mrs. Arndt would be re-assigned the next day and the homework assignment would forever be forgotten. That did not happen.

So, I did the best I could, which was pretty good compared to some classmates who could not remember the name of the poem.  On my day of reckoning, I made it through the first verse without much trouble.  I did okay the rest of the way, but needed prompting several times by Mrs. Arndt.

Well, to this day, 60-plus years later, I still remember most of the words.

          It takes a heap of living in a house to make a home,

          A heap of rain and sunshine and you sometimes have to roam,

          Before you really appreciate the things you left behind,

          With hunger for them always, with them always on your mind.

It took quite a few years but the words have a much clearer meaning today.  No doubt, Mrs. Arndt was preparing us for the future.  A lot of truth to those first four lines, but you almost have to live your life to get the full meaning.  The first two lines of each of the final three verses provide lessons of life yet to come for a third-grader:

          Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;

          Before it’s home there’s got to be a heap of living in it . . .

          You’ve got to weep to make it home, you’ve got to sit and sigh

          And watch beside a loved one’s bed, and know that Death is nigh . . .

          You’ve got to sing and dance for years, you’ve got to romp and play,

          And learn to love the things you have by using them each day . . . 

All the words following these opening lines carry meaningful messages of a perceptive poet.  They would have been only words hidden in a book had it not been for an equally perceptive teacher.

Thank you, Edgar A. Guest. And thank you for the torture, Mrs. Arndt.

Here, read the complete dialect version and then read it to your children and grandchildren.