the props. She went off stage and introduced herself. James Barnaby blushed as he described himself as the school handyman. Unlike Ed Parsons, who was all bravado, Barnaby — as he liked to be called — exuded a quiet confidence. He laughed, saying he was constructing the stage for a formidable actress. They talked awhile before he returned to sawing and hammering the pieces of wood. At each rehearsal Lily chatted with Barnaby, hoping he might wait around and ask her out. But before each practice session ended, he would rush off without explanation.
The night of the sellout performance, Barnaby stood in the wings with an ear-to-ear grin as Lily bowed to a standing ovation. The Sunday after her acting debut, Lily took advantage of the crisp fall day to relax. It was her custom on weekends to take an early morning walk to explore different neighbourhoods. She was pleased and surprised when Barnaby caught up with her.
“Are you following me?” she asked, not disguising her pleasure at seeing him.
“I’m not following you. I’m trying to catch up,” Barnaby said blushing. They walked along silently, stopping on a road where the houses looked like unfinished repair projects. One single-storey house was still waiting to be clad. Loose insulation flapped haplessly in the breeze.
Lily suddenly turned to Barnaby, looking perplexed. “The drama teacher told me you studied medicine. So why are you at teachers’ college?”
“You were asking the teacher about me?” Barnaby asked with a smile, raising an eyebrow.
Lily blushed this time.
“I’ll need to teach for a year or two to earn enough to start a specialty in surgery,” Barnaby explained. “I had a scholarship for my first degree.”
Lily had a pang of anguish, feeling her life was so much easier than Barnaby’s. My scholarship is a source of pride, but not essential to my going to teachers’ college, she thought, as she returned Barnaby’s smile.
He gestured toward the flapping tarpaper. “That’s what I call a do-it-yourself project. I grew up in a house like that. My father died before he could finish the exterior. A teacher’s salary won’t be enough to finish a surgery internship. Fortunately, my father taught me basic carpentry skills and that’s what I do in my spare time. Surgery is a good choice for a handyman.”
“You do have your life well planned,” Lily said, aware now of why Barnaby rushed off after rehearsals.
“My father at least lived to see me become the junior lightweight boxing champion,” Barnaby said. “He taught me to box and how never to lose a match.”
Lily’s eyebrows popped up in surprise at this statement. Barnaby shot her a boyish grin.
“He also instructed me how to be a gentleman in the ring.”
Lily smiled. “You seem more cherubic than pugnacious, Barnaby, with those pink cheeks.”
Barnaby gripped her arms gently and swivelled her around to head in another direction. Lily felt her heart beat faster, just as it had while watching him build the stage.
“Let’s go see where we’ll practise-teach,” Lily said, embarrassed by her thoughts. “It’s in an equally poor area.”
They stopped suddenly as they saw a large man cuffing a small boy’s ears. Lily dashed across the street to intervene in the bullying, and Barnaby followed her. “Please stop that,” Lily said firmly to the man.
“The boy sings in the church choir like an angel, but speaks like a clown,” the father said, finally taking his hands off the boy.
“I, I, I don’t m-m-m-mean to,” blurted the boy, who looked to be about seven years old.
“Come see for yourself,” the father said angrily, gesturing to the nearby church.
Curious, Lily and Barnaby followed the pair into church and listened to Bobby’s unhampered voice as he sang.
Several weeks after this incident, Lily began her teaching practicum at Bobby’s school, and the incident of the stuttering boy who could sing so beautifully stayed in her mind.
After a rehearsal one evening, Lily told the drama teacher about the boy’s stuttering. The teacher had studied in Paris for a year and recounted the story of the famous French actor Louis Jouvet, who could act his parts perfectly, yet not speak in a normal conversation without stuttering. The teacher had concluded that a singsong voice allows a stutterer to control his speech. Lily approached the principal to see if she could set up an after-class program for three boys, including Bobby. The principal agreed to let her try, and Lily began her speech classes. The sessions were kept to half an hour as the boys couldn’t tolerate more than thirty minutes of trying to speak properly.
On those afternoons, Lily walked into the classroom with her tools. Using mirrors, feathers, balloons, handkerchiefs, and songbooks, she worked with the little boys on breath control. She had noticed within the first lesson that each boy took a huge breath before trying to speak. She also noticed that they were speaking when almost out of air. Another startling moment occurred when a frustrated boy shouted at Lily without stammering. Lily ended each session with songs, and they would trudge home to their disappointed parents.
Disappointment turned to pride when the stuttering boys sang in the Christmas concert. The seasonal choir was featured on the front page of the local newspaper. At the end of Lily’s practicum, she met with the parents to show them the exercises she had taught the boys. And with this lesson, she extracted with her broad smile and thoughtful brown eyes, a promise: the parents would no longer shout at the boys. “Pressure,” Lily told them, “is the root of a stutterer’s problem.”
Lily won the best teaching practicum on graduation. She and Barnaby exchanged their parents’ addresses, not knowing exactly where they would end up living. Barnaby had accepted a teaching post at a high school in Halifax. They were both filled with uncertainty now that war had erupted. Lily had been disappointed that Barnaby had not declared himself for she was sure that he fancied her. Why else would he have asked her to come to watch him box on Saturday afternoons? The wistful memory of sitting on a front bench and cheering Barnaby on was disheartening. Her heart had taken a flip when he’d looked at her from the ring and winked. He had singled her out, but when the match was over he would leave immediately, saying that he had to finish a carpentry job.
Amelia was frustrated when Lily arrived home without a serious beau. When she admitted she had exchanged addresses with a fellow student, Amelia shrugged. “What good is that?”
“He’s going to become a surgeon,” Lily bleated. “He’s years of studying ahead of him.”
“But he didn’t propose!” Amelia retorted, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
Despite this initial tension, Lily decided she would like to spend a summer month with her parents before leaving to teach. Lily had been offered teaching jobs in Sydney, but she chose a post in Glace Bay to be close to her parents, but not underfoot. Glace Bay was only ten miles from Sydney. The onset of war had made many families closer, with the constant worry and fear of not knowing who might be lost. Robert White was a liberal, bordering on pacifist. He would have enlisted against his beliefs to please his military father, but circumstances saved him. The Sydney Hospital needed a pharmacist, and Robert volunteered his services, thus avoiding the war.
Lily’s sister Beth had joined an amateur acting troupe for the summer that had ended up in New York City. She sent cheery letters home, describing her exciting
