so we very quickly learned to be absolutely quiet about it

"Since people didn't deal with children and things like that,

it would have been considered a nonsubject or a silly one.

And at the time, when we said we studied nursery rhymes,

we were considered an oddity. So we very quickly learned

to keep absolutely quiet about it. Also, had we been to

university, we would have realized that everybody knew

so much, but because we didn't know what was and wasn't

permissible and possible, we just went forward. (Iona

learned German and Italian in order to work on our books.)

And, equally, we were not only enthusiastic but also self-

critical; we went on criticizing ourselves until we felt that

there couldn't be much wrong with what we were doing."

Peter Opie to Jonathan Cott,

Pipers at the Gates of Dawn

images:

m. goose 1691, rare book buyer

alphabet, sc libraries

& street football, gubog

Be Light of Heart

A Summer Rhyme, In Time for Fall

I asked my mother for fifty cents

To see the elephant jump the fence;

He jumped so high he reached the sky

And didn't come back till the Fourth of July.

From I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book

edited by Iona and Peter Opie

illustrated by Maurice Sendak