Oral English

       I dreaded it, speaking in public, even though the public forum was the seventh grade classroom in the old Schaghticoke Elementary building. I must have spoken the allotted time then, but I have no idea what I could have talked about.
     But I do remember the topic chosen by a new girl to our class. I'll call her Evie. She was dark-haired, with a pretty heart-shaped face. Dressed in a pink dress with a sweetheart neckline and a flared skirt, she stood before the class, and recounted how she was told to get rid of a litter of unwanted kittens.  In those days, it was not an unusual request to ask of a child. I have vivid memories of a boy from down the lane carrying a burlap bag of kittens and dropping the bag off the Valley Falls bridge into the river, and on more than one such occasion.
    Evie didn't seem nervous as she stood before the class. She smiled a little as she detailed her choice of execution of the task given her. She chose the backyard clothesline, the type with the double rope and pulley. She  looped the rope around the neck of each kitten; she said there were three.  Then she activated the pulley, which of course tightened the rope. She described the image of the dangling kittens, contorted and dying.
   I don't remember any reaction from the teacher, though I think some of the audience laughed.