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She was only about five feet tall and probably never weighed more than 110 pounds, but Miss Bessie was a towering presence in the classroom．She was the only woman tough enough to make me read Beowulf and think for a few stupid days that I liked it．From 1938 to 1942, she taught me English, history－and a lot more than I realized．
I shall never forget the day she scolded(批評)me into reading Beowulf．“But Miss Bessie, ” I complained, “I ain’t much interested in it．”
Her large brown eyes became sharp．“Boy, ” she said, “how dare you say ‘ain’t’ to me! I’ve taught you better than that．”
“Miss Bessie, ” I said, “I’m trying to join the football team, and if I go around saying ‘it isn’t’ and ‘they aren’t, ’ the guys are gonna laugh me off the team．”
“Boy,” she replied, “you’ll play football because you have guts(勇氣)．But do you know what really takes guts? Refusing to lower your standards to those of the crowd．It takes guts to say you’ve got to live and be somebody fifty years after all the football games are over．”
I started saying “it isn’t” and “they aren’t, ” and I still joined the team without losing my friends’ respect．
Negroes, as we were called then, were not allowed in the town library, except to sweep floors or clean tables．But with the help of some nice whites, Miss Bessie kept getting books out of the white library．That is how she introduced me to the Bront?s, Byron and Keats．“If you don’t read, you can’t write, and if you can’t write, you might as well stop dreaming, ” Miss Bessie once told me．
So I read whatever Miss Bessie told me to, and tried to remember the things she insisted that I store away．It could be embarrassing to be unprepared when Miss Bessie said, “Get up and tell the class who Frances Perkins is and what you think about her．” Forty-five years later, I can still recite her “truths to live by”．
Miss Bessie noticed things that had nothing to do with schoolwork, but were essential to a youngster’s development．Once a few classmates made fun of my worn-out hand-me-down overcoat．As I was leaving school, Miss Bessie patted me on the back of that old overcoat and said, “Carl, never worry about what you don’t have．Just make the most of what you do have － a brain．”
No child can get all the necessary support at home, and millions of poor children get no support at all．This is what makes a wise, educated, warm-hearted teacher like Miss Bessie so essential to the minds, hearts and souls of this country’s children．
