I guess I'm a packrat. I love to go to flea markets, garage sales, old junk shops and used bookstores. And I've managed to collect some pretty interesting stuff. Mostly I look for books.

One day I was looking around in the little junk shop, when I came across a 1935 edition of English in Action. It was a junior high school English composition textbook. Usually that kind of book wouldn't have interested me, but this one had some papers and old newspaper clippings tucked inside which caught my eye.

There was a hand-written student essay on lined paper entitled "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." I guess it surprised me to find out that teachers really did asked students to write papers about what they did during the summer, and I was curious to find out what a student might write. After reading the first two pages, I quickly paid the woman who ran the shop the fifty cents she was asking for the book. It was a real bargain.

The essay was poorly written. The spelling was creative, the sentence structure was abominable, and there was almost no punctuation. But the kid sure had a great story to tell.

I have rewritten the girl's essay so that it's easier to read while trying to preserve the sweet, simple, and innocence character of the child who wrote it. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

What Did on My Summer Vacation
By Susan Hollybeck
Sept. 29, 1937
8th grade English Comp., Section D
Mr. Grafton, teacher

I turned 15 this year. Mommy said I should work this summer. I am not smart. I had to repeat fourth grade. I repeat sixth grade too. I was smart once. Then I bumped my head and I wasn't smart anymore. I was in third grade when I bump my head. I did not know how to get a job. Mommy told me that because I was pretty she could get me a job.

Mommy got me a nice job working for Mr. Thomas J. Smith, Esquire. Mr. Smith is a nice man. He is a lawyer. He has a really pretty office in a big building downtown. He has a secretary and two other girls working for him. Mr. Smith helps people who cannot have babies. He finds babies for them. He is a nice man and people like him.

We always dress up in the office. Miss Dove and the two girls wear pretty skirts and dresses all the time. Miss Dove is Mr. Smith's secretary. She is pretty and skinny. Elizabeth is not skinny. She is a redhead. Molly is skinny but her belly is big and got bigger all summer. She has black hair. Mr. Smith wears a suit, a tie, and a white shirt. He looks real pretty.

Miss Dove took me shopping for clothes. That was fun. She bought me skirts and blouses. The skirts were short. The skirts had lots of cloth. When I twirled, they would fly up. The blouses were thin and white. I asked Miss Dove about underclothes. She told I would not be wearing underwear at the office. I asked if I should wear panties and a pad when I have my periods. She said I would not be having periods much longer. I did not understand, but she was right. I had my last period just before I started to work for Mr. Smith. I still do not understand why.

Miss Dove told me we had to look professional in the office. She said if we were relaxed we would look professional. Then she asked Elizabeth to take me to the storeroom and teach me to relax. Elizabeth had me lay on a table. She pulled up my skirt. And then she relaxed me. She relaxed me real good, and she did this by licking me between my legs. I liked relaxing. After Elizabeth relaxed me, she taught me how to relax her and that was fun too.

After lunch Miss Dove sent Molly and me into the stockroom so we could relax some more. This time Molly licked me until I relaxed and she shoved a big rubber thing up my pee pee. Because my pee pee was wet, it went in nice and easy, but at first it hurt a little bit, but then it started to feel better and all of a sudden I relaxed all over again. Molly said the rubber thing would get me ready so Mr. Smith could relax me. Molly called the rubber thing a due-dough or something like that.

When we got back from the storeroom, Miss Dove put me to work licking stamps and putting them on envelopes. When I finished, she said she had something else for me to lick. She took me into Mr. Smith's office. She told me to get on my knees in front of Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith opened his pants and pulled out a thing that looked like the due-dough Molly showed me. Only, at first, it was a lot smaller. Miss Dove told me to lick it, and I did. Well Golly, it got bigger and bigger until it was bigger than the due-dough. That's when Miss Dove told me to take off my clothes and lie down on the rug so Mr. Smith could relax me. I'm a good girl, so I do what adults tell me to do.

Mr. Smith took off his clothes and laid down on top of me. Miss Dove pushed his thing into my pee pee, and, golly, did he ever relax me. I couldn't believe he got that whole thing up inside me.

I think he relaxed me two or three times, and when he finished, he left a whole gob of gray stuff up inside me. When I stood up, I started to leak. Miss Dove had a cardboard tube with a cotton thing inside. She pushed the tube into my pee pee. Then she pushed the cotton thing out of the tube with a little stick-thing while she pulled the tube out of me. There was a little string hanging out. She told me that tomorrow morning I could pull the sting and everything would come out, but I should leave it in over night.

The string tickled when I walked, but at least the cotton thing kept me from leaking on the way home. When I told Mom about all this, she didn't seem surprised. In fact, she seemed happy that I was doing such a good job.

Mr. Smith relaxed me every night for the next three weeks. In fact he came to the house on Saturdays and Sundays to relax me up in my bedroom while my mother watched. I was really beginning to enjoy being relaxed every afternoon, and of course, I relaxed Molly and Miss Dove and Elizabeth during the day. They relaxed me too, but I liked the way Mr. Smith relaxed me best. I liked feeling all that gooey stuff up inside me.

Every morning Miss Dove asked if my period had come. When I didn't have a period for more than three weeks, she said, "It looks like Mr. Smith put a bun in your oven."

I didn't understand what she meant; because at home we mostly eat bread from the store, and the only thing we bake is cookies. I don't think we ever baked any buns, and I don't think Mr. Smith ever went into our kitchen, so how could he put anything in my oven?

After that, Mr. Smith said he wanted me to become a profession relaxer. He explained that he had lots of friends who needed to relax and that they would help me to relax too. He started sending me around to offices and hotels and The Elks Club and places like that to meet people who wanted to relax. The people were mostly men, but sometimes a woman needed to relax and sometime there would be a man and woman together. Once I spent a whole weekend at a big house in the country with four couples who all wanted to relax with me. With eight people to relax, I was kept busy night and day. I noticed that some of these men didn't know how to relax me from behind. They put their thing into my pooper instead of my pee pee. Once a man had his thing in my pee pee and another man put his thing in my pooper at the same time. Boy, that really relaxed me.

One the nice things about working for Mr. Smith, is that I get to keep all the pretty clothes Miss Dove bought for me. Only, it's kind of funny, they seem to be getting awful tight. I think it must have something to do with the soap Mom uses to wash them.

Mom said not to worry; I'm due in February and once she gets the adoption money, she'll buy me a new dress. I asked her what that meant and said it just was business. Well, I'm not very smart, so I guess I don't know much about business.

The best news is that Mr. Smith wants me to work for him again next summer.

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That was the end of Susan's essay, but I don't think that was the end of the story. Across the top of the paper in red-pencil was written, "Very good paper, B . Susan, if you have time after school, stop by my room. Maybe you can teach me how to relax. (Signed) Cliff Grafton."

There were also two newspaper clippings tucked inside the book.

The first clipping was dated December 22, 1937, four months after Susan turned in her essay. The heading read "Susan Hollybeck to wed Clifford Grafton in civil ceremony on Christmas eve."

The second clipping was dated December 23, 1987. It reads as follows: "Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Grafton to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary on Christmas eve. The couple will be joined by their eight children, 35 grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and many other friends and relatives to celebrate this happy occasion."