OLD TIN DIPPER

Visitors that visit the Thresher’s Park Schoolhouse always notice the old fashioned metal “Arctic Boy” water cooler standing on a wooden stool beside a window. A necessity back in the days of no running water, it still reminds what a pleasure it must have been to school children to get a refreshing cool drink of water on a warm sunny day, and the tin dipper hanging on the side of the cooler sparks a little nostalgia too.

Pinned to the wall beside the cooler is a pretty little poster with a poem printed in the middle was written by Margaret Neel. She titled the poem “The Tin Dipper”  to capture the feeling and minds of how pleasant the simple things can be.

THE TIN DIPPER
by Margaret Neel

It hung on a pail that stood on a stool
By the door of an old-time country school,
And the water it dipped was cool and sweet,
Fresh as mountain dew in the schoolroom’s heat.

Its handle was long, its cup was battered,
But to shoving children all that mattered
Was the clear cool drink that would quench the thirst
Of the lucky youngster who reached it first.

And never was water so good, so cool,
As dipped from the pail at that old-time school
Along with the schoolhouse of another day,
The common tin dipper has passed away.

But on warm still days it is good to think
Of that old tin dipper’s refreshing drink,
From the shining pail on a wooden stool
By the door of an old-time country school.