The Fountain Pen

- jim Young

“Memory is more indelible than ink.” - Anita Loos

The pen pictured here is actually a“dip” pen and a little older than the fountain pen described in my story. Dip pens did not have cartridges or bladders to hold the ink that the fountain pens had. Subsequently dip pens required dipping into the inkwell much more frequently. 

At one time, desks in offices had two inkwells, one sat on the left side of the desk and was filled with red ink and one on the right side that was filled with black ink. Entries were made in black ink to record “debits” while entries in red ink represented “credits”. This is where the expression “in the red” came from to describe someone that was in debt.

Eventually blue ink replaced black ink.

The writing surface of the leather writing pad shown here, stored sheets of blotter paper used to quickly dry the ink on a sheet of paper by simply pressing down on it. Care had to be taken so as not to smear the ink while it was still wet. 

I was in Grade 4 the first time I took a fountain pen to school. Pencils were the standard issue to the students in Grade 4 but I was feeling like one of the big boys now and thought I was ready to move ahead.

Our desks were all fitted with small holes in the front right corner that would hold the inkwells when we were ready, but like the rest of the students at my level they all sat empty.

I didn’t see that as a deterrent. My fountain pen did not have the usual bladder that would be squeezed when dipping the tip of my fountain pen into the ink to refill it. No siree bob. My fountain pen was state-of-the art that was loaded with a disposable cartridge that came 5 to a pack in a small yellow box marked with the prestigious brand name “Cartier”.

Cartier was the Cadillac of fountain pens. I just glossed over the fact that my fountain pen wasn’t actually a Cartier - just the cartridges were.

I waited for the right moment as my teacher walked up and down the aisles overseeing her students that were busy working on a writing assignment.

As she approached my desk, I took a deep breath to help get up the nerve to speak. It was now or never but I knew the proper protocol would have to be followed so I politely raised my hand.

I could hear the clock on the wall emitting a droning hum.  Afterall, this was the 1950s and our school was equipped with electric clocks, not the old fashioned ones that meted out the often seemingly endless passage of time with a tick-tock, tick-tock.

It seemed like an eternity before Mrs. Cowan noticed my hand. “Yes, Jimmie?”

I cringed. My mother and sisters got a pass to call me Jimmie, but in school, I felt I deserved the respect of being acknowledged as just “Jim”. But this was not the time to take a stand.

“Um, Mrs. Cowan?” I repeated, raising my voice at the end to make it sound more like a question.

“Yes, Jimmie?” she patiently replied.

“Um. See my new pen?”

“Yes, Jimmie,” Mrs. Cowan answered. “That’s a very nice pen,” she added patronizingly.

“Um,” I continued, “Mrs. Cowan? Do you think I could do my work with a pen instead of a pencil?”

There it was. I had laid it on the line. 

“Well, Jimmie,” Mrs. Cowan replied, “Usually we don’t let students use pens in class until Grade 5…”

BAM. There it was. I didn’t even mind her calling me “Jimmie” anymore. Anyone with half a brain could have told you the next line to follow would be “but I guess we can make an exception for you.”

Of course she could make an exception for me. Why couldn’t she? I was an exceptional student. Because of the calendar date of my birthday, I had started school a year earlier than most of my classmates. And my teacher even considered “skipping me” ahead a year. It was only after discussing it with my parents that they decided that because I was already so much younger than my classmates, it might be socially difficult for me being in a class with even older students.

So, hell - I was practically a Grade Fiver already anyway.

It wasn’t like I made a lot of mistakes, either. Just look at how new the eraser looked on the end of my old worn down pencil.

My pen was uncapped and I set the nib to make contact with the paper. I was about to pen, both literally and figuratively, a composition entitled, “Mrs. Cowan… the greatest teacher on earth,” when Mrs. Cowan finished with “so I think you’ll have to wait until next year.”

What? Mrs. Cowan was a teacher! How could she not know this was not how that sentence was supposed to finish? What was the literary purpose of the “Usually” in her answer for anyway, if not to lead to an exception? The second part of that sentence was supposed to start with a “but” not a “so”. I was left reeling, trying to find a grammatical rule that I might use against Mrs. Cowan, but I came up blank.

I capped my pen and tucked it safely away into my Roy Rogers lunch box then raised my hand again.

“Yes, Jimmie?” Mrs. Cowan asked.

“Um. I need to sharpen my pencil.” Mrs. Cowan just nodded her approval. As I sulked to the window where the pencil sharpener was, I muttered under my breath so no one could hear, “And it’s ‘Jim’”.

- 30 -

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