When I was about seven and a half years old my father decided to start me to school. It happened to be near the end of the month and when my first week of school ended, Father received a bill for my tuition as I was under the free-school age. Because it seemed to him unreasonably large, after he had paid it he decided that it would be just as well for me to study at home until I was eight years old.
Study at home was not too bad. George’s school books I had already gone over with special interest. In his McGuffey’s readers, I had already memorized most of the poems. Also, his big geography and physiology textbooks had proved to be very interesting.
I now began to study the more difficult words in Webster’s Blueback Speller. Alice would assign my lessons and after one had been studied for an hour or so, she would take the book and pronounce, or “give out,” the words to me; it was unusual for me to miss one. Arithmetic was very difficult for me and though I studied the multiplication table diligently and practiced “doing sums” in addition, subtraction, and multiplication with some regularity, my knowledge of arithmetic, penmanship, and English usage lagged far behind that of reading, spelling, geography, and history.
When my eighth birthday came in February, 1887, it was so late in the term that it seemed useless for me to enter school until autumn. Fairly early in the fall of 1887, however, I entered the Keller School and was placed in the “little room.” Miss Julia Leverett was the teacher and her brother, “Professor” Leverett, presided over the other room and taught the older students. So many big girls and boys attended school, however, that Miss Julia heard two classes coming in from his room each day—one in advanced arithmetic and the other in grammar.
The Leveretts were from Arkansas, and evidently Mr. Leverett had at some time attended a military school or perhaps had received military training in college. At any rate, he quickly organized all of the bigger boys into a company and gave them half-an-hour’s drill after school and usually drilled them another half hour during the noon intermission.
This was something entirely new to the students of the Keller School and some of their parents were a trifle skeptical as to the value of such drills, but the boys seemed to like them. The older girls also appeared to be fascinated by the activities of the marching column of boys as they obeyed such commands as: “fall in, right-dress, front, forward, common-time march, right, left, right, left, halt, column right—march.”
Miss Julia seemed to be a good teacher. Her pupils sat on long benches with a long slightly sloping board in front of them, on which the kids rested their slates and tablets when writing. As there were no closets in which to hang hats and caps, they were usually on this long desk in front of the pupils. When the older students came in from the other room for their arithmetic lesson one of them would often pick up some small boy’s hat and start using it as an eraser if Miss Julia’s back was turned.
The small youngster upon seeing his precious little wool headgear so mistreated would lift his hand high in the air, wave it frantically to and fro, and start snapping his fingers. As Miss Julia, who had put a ban on finger snapping, started to turn around, the hat would be tossed back in front of its owner. Seeking to justify himself the small lad would exclaim, “John Merrill was a-racin’ with my hat!” The only result was that he was reprimanded for snapping his fingers, while the real culprit got off scot free!
At the end of a couple of weeks Miss Julia gave an examination to the fourth-reader class, in which I had been placed, to see if some of the members might not be advanced to the fifth-reader group, which sat in the other room. After all of us had read aloud a few paragraphs containing some fairly difficult words, two or three were advanced to the fifth reader and sent to Mr. Leverett’s room. Miss Julia told me that my reading was as good as the best of these but because of my youth and lack of knowledge of arithmetic she thought it best for me to stay in her room until after Christmas. After the holidays were over, however, I was sent to Mr. Leverett’s room to join the fifth-reader class.
The country kids, who constituted the great majority of the pupils, all walked to school carrying their lunches in a tin-covered pail called a “dinner bucket.” As indicated in an earlier chapter, the people of the Cross Timbers always called the midday meal dinner and the evening meal supper. Also, the word “pail” was completely alien to their speech. Always it was a water bucket, milk bucket, and dinner bucket.
The contents of the dinner buckets varied widely, usually consisting of sandwiches made of large biscuits cut in halves and buttered, with a couple of slices of bacon or a fried egg between the two halves. Sometimes the filling might be a slice of ham or a cake of sausage. Instead of an egg sandwich there might be a couple of boiled eggs. Usually included were some cookies or a piece of cake, pie, gingerbread, or a fried pie. In some cases there might be a teacup half-full of sorghum or a bottle of milk. Generally, the bucket contained plenty of solid, substantial food calculated to “stick to the ribs” throughout a long day, though a modern dietitian would probably hold up her hands in horror at such food for growing children!
It was a mile-and-a-half walk from our house to Keller and the schoolhouse was just beyond the east edge of the village. We usually walked down the road along the south edge of our lower field to the railroad and followed it to town, which we had to cross to reach the school. Some boys, including Sumter and Hubert Boone and Bill Mayes had to walk farther than George and I did, so that we usually had company on the way to and from school.
The usual perennial feud existed between the town and country boys, and small fights were fairly common. Under the “common law” of most rural and village schools all pupils were responsible to the teacher while on the way home. Moreover, in the Keller School the youngsters were expected to go directly home, and any country kid who lingered unduly long in town was likely to be called before Mr. Leverett and asked to explain why.
I recall that one day when George and I had started home and had got as far as town, we found Father there with the wagon loading up some groceries; we stopped and waited until he was ready to go home. Oscar McCain, whose home was on the road about halfway between town and our place, waited to ride with us.
Unfortunately, Mr. Leverett saw us as he was going home, and the next morning soon after school opened called, “George Dale, Ed Dale, and Oscar McCain come front.” As this was only about a week after my promotion to his room, I froze with horror but rose and followed George and Oscar up to the teacher’s desk with my knees shaking a little. “George,” said Mr. Leverett, “why were you fooling around town last evening after school?”
“Well sir,” George began, “Paw was there with the wagon and . . .”
“Oh, you and your brother were waiting for a ride home. Oscar, how about you?”
“Well, Mr. Dale was there with the wagon and goes right by our house . . .”
“I see. You were waiting for a ride too. All right. Seats, pass.”
This was my only time in school to be “called up on the carpet,” although probably not the only time I should have been called. Always there were some boys less fortunate, although no school I ever attended had more than one or two tough lads in it and none of these ever gave the teacher any serious trouble. Since drill largely took the place of playing games for the older boys, little playing was done at recess or during the noon hour except by the smaller boys and little girls. The big girls got enough entertainment by watching the larger boys drill!
Just what was the length of the Keller term of school, I’m not sure. Picking cotton in the fall always forced me to enter school late, and thinning corn and chopping cotton made it necessary for me to quit early in the spring. In consequence, it is doubtful if my attendance was ever more than five or six months of any term and was probably less.
As noted in a previous chapter, Alice and I left the Cross Timbers home for Navajoe in Greer County in October, 1888, to be followed by Father and George a month or so later. As earlier stated my four or five months of schooling in
that little frontier town did much to advance my education. This was not because Miss Anna was an outstanding teacher, for she was not. It was due to the fact that she lent me so many good books, which I devoured at a most impressionable age. Up to that time I had been starved for reading matter, and every book was a feast.
As George remained in Greer County only about three months, he did not enter school that year. Moreover, neither of us had any schooling to amount to anything the following year, 1889–1890. By the time we had spent a month or more in camp on Walnut Creek picking cotton, had returned to help Tom for a few weeks, and at last had regained possession of our home, it was close to midwinter. With the school term nearly half over and so much work to do in repairing fences and making other improvements which our old tenant had neglected, we were needed to work on the farm.
Moreover, since we did not have Alice to cook and keep house we were keeping “bachelor’s hall,” and did our own cooking and housekeeping. Eventually we worked out a fairly good division of labor. Father milked the cows, George did most of the housework, and I did the lion’s share of the cooking during the crop season, although Father often cooked breakfast. During the winter months when I was in school Father did most of the cooking. Dish washing was usually my job even when I was attending school, except at noon of course during the five days of school each week.
Unlike the school year of 1889–1890, I attended the Keller School regularly the following year for the entire term of seven months. The Leveretts had gone and the teacher in the big room was Professor Minor, while the small youngsters were taught by a young woman from one of the nearby towns.
Mr. Minor introduced us to what he called the Rugby type of football. It was played with a big round ball about the size of a basketball. Two goal posts were set up at each end of the field, which was about the length of a modern football field. The objective was to drive the ball between the two goal posts with the feet. The ball could not be touched by the hand except when it was in the air.
We developed a great enthusiasm for the game and played it not only at school but at home when four or five boys got together. We had no real football of course except at school, but an ordinary yarn ball was a fairly satisfactory substitute. The game was hard on shoes and harder still on shins at times, but it was great fun.
We sat at double desks and my deskmate, a little older than myself, was Willie Mulkey, an orphan, who lived with his aunt. Before a month of school had gone by Willie had developed a great crush on Lela Ponder, a little tow-headed girl about twelve years old, whose desk was on the south side of the room almost directly opposite ours.
Lela, always called “Lelar” in the vernacular of the Cross Timbers, apparently reciprocated Willie’s affection; but the girls’ playground was on the south and west sides of the schoolhouse and that of the boys’ on the east and north sides. Moreover, the girls’ playground was strictly off limits for boys. The young Romeo had almost no opportunity to talk with his Juliet, for they lived in opposite directions from the schoolhouse and could not walk home together.
In desperation Willie took the only means of communication open to him—writing surreptitious notes. How long this clandestine correspondence had been going on I never knew, for my deskmate must have been very discreet in getting his notes delivered.
One day, however, when the teacher’s back was turned, Willie undertook to slip a note across to his beloved; but Mr. Minor suddenly turned and caught him in the act.
“Willie,” Professor Minor said kindly, “I am sure we would all be interested in anything you write. Will you please stand and read that to us.”
Willie began to cry but Mr. Minor’s voice grew stern as he said, “Come on Willie, stand up and read it to us. We are all waiting.”
Willie staggered to his feet, stifled his sobs, and in a shaky but distinct voice read his epistle, “My Dear Lelar, I thought I would write you a few lines to let you know that I am well. Did you get the big apple I gave the other girl to give you? Lovingly yours, Willie.” As he finished reading he sat down, folded his arms on the desk, and dropped his face on them as he wept silently.
“That is very good Willie,” said the teacher gently. “She knows you’re well now, so you can get back to work.”
Willie sat up in a minute or two. His grief had been replaced by furious anger; and behind the big geography book, which was the text for our next class, he poured into my unwilling ears a whispered, bitter monologue consisting mostly of dire threats of vengeance.
“I’ll git eben with him,” he declared violently. “I’ll git eben with him if it takes all this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if I come up here some night and cut all of them herasers down. Maybe I’ll bring some molasses up here some night and pour it all over the top of his desk or put some long sharp tacks in his chair. Maybe next spring I might ketch a snake and put in his desk. Makin’ me read that note! I’ll git eben with him some way.” Willie was merely letting off steam in whispering to me all the things he was going to do to “git eben” with Mr. Minor. He doubtless got much pleasure out of this, but as a matter of fact he never did anything.
This was by far the longest term I attended during my years in the Cross Timbers. Mr. Minor was an inspiring teacher and for me there was never a dull moment during any school day. He put new mottoes up on the wall, such as “Education is Wealth,” “Knowledge is Power,” and several others. In addition, he often stayed after school to write wise sayings of literary men on the board and asked us to look up others to give at roll call. Those who did not find some new quotations might read one from those on the wall or those written on the blackboard.
Although this was done only about once or twice a month, most of the so-called “scholars” did not bother to look up a special quotation but read one from wall or board. A few of us, however, always had something ready to give when the roll was called. They varied from, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country” or “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb” to “One must eat to live, and not live to eat.”
As in most other schools of that time the period after Friday afternoon recess was usually given over to “speaking pieces” or a spelling match, although we occasionally had a “ciphering match.” This was the period when we often had a few visitors, which put everyone on his mettle. The speeches were often taken from one of McGuffey’s readers, although we were not using them but a new series. Included in the recitations were familiar old poems or in some instances a prose selection.
In the spelling matches the teacher usually asked an older boy and girl to serve as captains. As it would have been neither dignified nor practical to use the “wet-or-dry” method of deciding who had first choice, the teacher held up a book, stated how many pages it had, and slipped a finger between the leaves not far from the middle. The captain whose guess was closest to the page number where the finger held the book open had first choice. The one chosen arose and stood beside the captain. In this way choosing went back and forth until all pupils stood in two long lines facing each other.
The teacher then pronounced the words from the spelling book, starting with fairly easy ones in order to give the poorer spellers a chance to stand in line for a few minutes at least. When one missed spelling a word he returned to his seat. This was continued sometimes until only one on each side was left to carry on a duel and until one of them went down and the other won a victory for his side.
This was called “spelling down the school.” It was my good fortune to win this honor a number of times. In addition, my love for poetry usually enabled me to make a fairly creditable showing in speaking. In a “ciphering match,” however, my weakness was readily apparent and no captain chose me early in the game. It must be admitted that in either spelling or arithmetic the competition was not too keen.
During this term of school a new set of readers had been adopted. This pleased me, for although I had always used McGuffey’s readers and had a great respect for them, it was good to have a
new fifth reader, as I was still in the fifth-reader class. The new book had many new poems and prose articles.
Yet, McGuffey’s fourth, fifth, and sixth readers did much to advance my education. They gave me at least some acquaintance with many of the authors in the fields of English and American literature up to that time. In them were found extracts from the writings of Shakespeare, Dickens, Scott, Southey, Tennyson, Byron, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, Gray, Hood, Bryant, Longfellow, Poe, Irving, Whittier, Everett, Beecher, and many others.
All of these I read and reread at a most impressionable age and memorized many of the poems and quite a few passages from some of the prose selections. As a result, such characters as Falstaff, Prince Hal, Shylock, Brutus, Mark Antony, Cassius, Little Nell, young Lochinvar, Robert Bruce, the Disinherited Knight, David Copperfield, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Paul Revere, Rip Van Winkle, the Village Blacksmith, and a host of others became as real to me as were my own playmates or their fathers. It is true that I did not understand everything and frequently called upon George to explain a stanza or paragraph, which he never failed to do.
After I had memorized “Paul Revere’s Ride,” George was asked to explain the meaning of one stanza:
A hurry of hoofs in the village street
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark
And beneath from the pebbles in passing a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet
That was all, and yet through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was riding that night
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
“Just what does that mean, George?” I asked.
The Cross Timbers Page 11