***
It was autumn now, and the soft, warm summer nights, with the sounds of night birds calling and the flickering light of fireflies dancing in the growing darkness, were gone, and the nights were getting cold. We would have to wait until next spring, when the weather got warm again, before we could enjoy the swing and the pool.
This day was the same as most, but not for me. This was my first day at a new school. I had been dreading this day for weeks. It was not only the first day of school; it was my first day at a new school.
First days at new schools were always difficult. I would have to get acquainted with new teachers, make new friends, and fight the bully. I wasn’t afraid of the bully, and I didn’t mind the fighting so much—it was just that the fighting didn’t really prove anything, and I didn’t like the spankings I got from the school principals and the whipping I got from Dad when I got home. I just wished it didn’t have to be done.
To get to the school, I had to walk about four or five miles across pasture land. The pasture had a few small tree-lined creeks running through it, where water had cut away the top soil and left red clay banks exposed. In the bends of the creek, brightly colored minnows darted around, gathering mosquito larva and other small insects that happened to land in the pools.
The walk took more than an hour. There were no roads, just trails made by animals and wagons.
The sun was rising, and a few clouds dotted the pale blue morning sky. It was going to be a warm day. The smell of autumn was in the air, and the grass blades were turning brown. Cattle were starting to graze; they stared at me as I walked by and seemed surprised to see me.
I carried my lunch in a one-gallon syrup pail. The lunch consisted of a homemade biscuit, a piece of fried pork, and a couple of shortbread cookies. I had a pad of lined paper and a lead pencil, but I didn’t have books because I didn’t yet know what books I would need.
I was wearing a pair of blue-bibbed overalls, and a plaid shirt that had belonged to J.D. He hadn’t quite worn it out, so it had passed down to me. My straw hat was a bit frazzled around the brim. Father had cut my hair, and I should have combed it while it was wet, but I didn’t get to it until after it had dried, so it was flying off in all directions. And even though I had scrubbed clean this morning, I was a sorry sight and I knew it. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting new people, because I wasn’t sure what kind of impression I was going to make.
I didn’t want to be late for my first day at the new school, and as I hurried along, I wondered what the day would be like. The schoolhouse was a one-story brick building that sprawled across the top of a low hill. It was big for a country school.
Father had told my brothers and me that many years ago the area had been a prosperous cattle-raising country with a railroad running through it. The ranchers had built a school big enough to educate their children, from grade one through grade twelve.
In its heyday, the town, Middleberg had large corrals and loading pens for the cattle that were to be shipped to markets back east. This had been a full-fledged frontier town, with stores and even saloons, where ladies of the night entertained the men who worked the cattle.
After the Civil War, the government opened the land for homesteading. The farmers fenced the land, broke the sod, and planted crops. Farming was good until the rains and winds eroded away the rich topsoil, leaving the land worthless for either farming or grazing. All it would produce now were jackrabbits, coyotes, and rattlesnakes.
Most of the ranchers gave up and moved on. The cattle were gone, and the clay hills were barren. Many farmers had to leave also, and the little town died. All that was left was the school, a church—which only a few people attended—and some old buildings that were falling down. One business remained, and it was the store that sold school supplies to the students.
A few farmers had tried to hang on, so there were still enough students to maintain a school. The money to pay the teachers and maintain the school came from the government.
I walked up the stone steps into the red-brick building and found myself in a long hallway with doors on either side. The first door on the right was divided into halves. The top half of the door was glazed with frosted glass, with the word “OFFICE” printed on it. I carefully opened the door and peered in. Behind a counter—a little too high for me to see over without getting up on my toes—a lady sat at a desk. I cleared my throat to attract her attention.
She glanced up with a “What do you want?” expression. When she saw me, her face softened a bit, and she said, “Yeess?”
“Could you tell me how to get to the sixth-grade room?” I asked.
She swung her head to the right, indicating the direction I should take. “It’s down the hall, the last door on the left.”
The wood floor of the hallway had been oiled. I could smell the odor of creosote. I knew that they had put oiled sawdust on the floors to help keep the dust down. It kept the dust down all right, but the bottoms of your feet got oily if you walked on it with bare feet, which most of the students did.
When I got to the room, I opened the door slowly. Sitting at the desk in the front of an empty classroom was a young woman, a little plump, a little prim, and a little pretty, with a kind face. She was young—maybe twenty. She wore low-heeled shoes and a loose-fitting skirt and blouse. Her hair was tied back and her teeth were white and even.
When she saw me, a smile lit her face. “Who might you be?” she asked.
“My name is Wayne Dicksion, and I’m in the sixth grade.”
“You may call me Mrs. Pringle,” she replied. “I’ll be your teacher.”
She pointed to the seats to her right. “The fifth-grade students sit over here,” and pointing to the seats on her left, she said, “The sixth-grade students sit on this side. Just take a seat. The rest of the children will be along in a little while.”
I took one that was three seats from the front. I didn’t want to be right in front or in the extreme back—I wanted to kind of blend in.
The blackboard that extended across the front of the room held erasers and white chalk in a tray along the bottom. The desks were made of polished wood; their tops had slots carved into them to hold pencils, and an inkwell in the upper left corner. The desktop sloped toward the student.
“You can put your lunch pail in the closet, but you’d better put your name on it,” she said as she handed me a pencil.
That meant that some of the other students brought their lunches in syrup buckets. I felt a little better about my lunch container.
“If you need to use the toilet,” Mrs. Pringle said, “the boys’ toilet is the first door on the right, just before you go out the back door.”
Surely, they don’t go to the toilet inside the school building. I gotta see this. I went out in the hall, turned left, and sure enough, there was a door with the word “BOYS” written on it. I went through the door into a room with a short wall extending to the left, creating a passageway so people couldn’t see into the toilet from the hallway. Behind the wall was a row of seats with round holes located over openings in the floor. On the other side, a metal trough was attached to the wall, with a slant, so it would drain to one end. At the low end, was a hole for the water to run out. But it didn’t run out; it just ran into a pipe that extended into the floor. Now this is a pretty strange place. I can’t use this toilet. I’ll wait until I get back out in the country on the way home. This is downright unsanitary.
Several kids were already in the classroom when I got back, and one of them was sitting at the desk I had selected, so I took the one in the next row. Mrs. Pringle smiled and continued with her paperwork.
Two girls walked in. One was skinny, with black hair and black eyes. Her complexion was very white, and she had a high thin nose and a little puckered mouth that she held in a mischievous smile. She was kind of pretty. She could have been very pretty if she didn’t have that impish expression on her face.
The other one wasn’t just a girl; she was what I
had always imagined an angel would be. She had blond hair with long curls hanging down her back, soft brown eyes that sparkled, and a smile that lit the room. Her dress was starched and ironed, and it flowed around her as she walked. Everyone stared at her. She didn’t seem to notice, but I had a feeling that she did notice, and was pleased by all the attention.
The girls sat in the front seats on the teacher’s right, which meant they were in the fifth grade. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the girl with the blond hair. She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. When she caught me looking at her and threw her head back and turned away disdainfully, making her blond curls bounce, I had been put down, but good. I didn’t blame her; I looked terrible. I felt so low; I would have to look up, to say good morning to a snake. Everyone knew I had been snubbed and seemed to be looking at me.
Mrs. Pringle called the class to order, and I was glad to get the attention off me. She asked us to stand. We put our hands over our hearts and pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I didn’t know what a republic was, but I knew it was very important because everybody stood for just a moment and looked proud. Then we were asked to be seated.
The teacher took roll call. Afterward, everybody got settled in their seats and Mrs. Pringle said, “Class, we have a new student this morning.” She looked right at me. “Would you come to the front of the class and tell us your name and where you live?”
Now I knew how that rabbit felt when it was trapped inside the hollow log with just no way out. I remember Father saying, “Son, always walk proud, with your head up and your shoulders back.”
I sure didn’t feel proud, but I held my head up, put my shoulders back, and walked briskly to the front of the room. I’ll sure be glad to get this over with.
Mrs. Pringle seemed pleased. The girl with the blond, curly hair and big, brown eyes looked at me, but she sure showed no admiration. There was just something about that look that made me feel—well, somehow inadequate. When I reached the front of the room, I turned, faced the class, and looked them all right in the eye, like Dad had said I should.
“My name is Wayne Dicksion. I live about four or five miles northwest of here, over on Spring Creek.” I couldn’t tell them my address, because farms only have location, such as Rural Route. I nodded my head. “Thank you,” I said, and then quickly walked back to my seat, sat down, and heaved a sigh.
The teacher smiled. The rest of the kids were grinning, all except one, and she was just staring at the blackboard at the front of the room. I knew it was going to take a lot to gain her acceptance, but I just had to do it somehow. She sure was pretty.
The teacher took a book from inside her desk, all the kids got real quiet, and then she began reading about a man named Robin, who lived in a place called Sherwood Forest. I knew there was a bird called robin, but I’d never heard a man called that, and I’d never heard about a place called Sherwood Forest. The name Robin sounded kind of sissy to me, but all of the other kids seemed to like him. He and his band of Merry Men were hiding from a bad guy who owned all of the land. The bad guy even owned the people.
Robin and his men had killed a deer with a bow and arrow. I guessed they were hungry, and I figured right away that they didn’t have any guns. They were not supposed to kill the deer, because the bad guy owned the deer. I had never heard of any such a thing—a man who thought he owned wild animals. It was easy to see why Robin and his band didn’t like him. I didn’t blame them for trying to hide from this crazy man.
I realized right away that I had joined the class in the middle of the story, and I was going to have trouble trying to figure it out. But just when the story was getting good, Mrs. Pringle stopped reading. She said she would read the next chapter tomorrow. I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to find out what happened, but it was time for the arithmetic lesson to start.
At ten o’clock, a bell rang and the kids all jumped up and ran outside. I asked one of the boys what was happening. He said it was time for recess. I knew about recess, but they had never rung a bell before. I was glad they rang the bell because I had to use the toilet. I didn’t have time to run down to the creek, but I sure didn’t feel right about relieving myself in the schoolhouse. I went through the door with the word “BOYS” written on it to see what the other boys were doing. They were all lined up at the trough. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice. I felt awful guilty, but the other kids didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong.
After going to the toilet, the boys ran outside to play. I went with them, but I didn’t know anybody, and nobody knew me, so I just stood and watched while they played a ball game.
Three boys walked up to me, and I knew right away that I was going to be tested to see if I would fight. This was something you had to go through any time you went to a new school. You had to prove that you’d fight. You didn’t have to fight well, but you had to be willing to fight. If you weren’t willing, you were labeled a coward and the kids would have nothing to do with you. Father knew about this custom and had taught me and my two older brothers how to fight. He taught us the skill of boxing and the art of wrestling. I was lucky, because most of the kids just knew how to scuffle, which was enough most of the time, but if the tough kid was really tough, you sure got beat up on. Usually, the fight lasted only a few minutes, and the worst that happened was that you got skinned up a bit.
When I saw the kid in the middle, I knew that he was going to be tough. He had white hair, a freckled face, and pale blue eyes, with a pug nose that reminded me of a bulldog. There was arrogance in his eyes that said, “I’m the toughest kid in school.” He was taller and heavier than me, but I’d fought kids bigger before.
He walked right up to me. “I’m Joe Dully,” he said, “and I don’t like you.”
The two boys with him stood glaring at me with their hands on their hips. I knew that if I whipped Joe, I wouldn’t have to fight the other two, but if I failed— and I suspected that most kids did—I was going to have to fight them, too.
“Well, Joe Dully, my name is Wayne Dicksion, and I don’t care if you like me or not. I don’t see much about you to like, and I sure don’t see anything about you to be afraid of.”
He hadn’t expected that kind of a reply, and at first he was taken aback. He didn’t quite know what to say, so he just glared. “I’m the toughest kid in school, and I’m gonna whip you.”
“Well, I see you’ve brought some help, but I don’t think you brought enough. They look like a couple of sissies to me, and you’re sure not big enough to do the job by yourself.”
I knew that I wasn’t going to have to fight all three of them at the same time. It was against the unwritten code of honor, and anyone engaging in such conduct would be ostracized by the whole school.
“I suggest you wait until lunch hour,” I said, “if you’re going to try to whip me. Recess is about over, and you’re going to need some time to do this job.”
“Okay,” Joe said, “we’ll wait until the lunch hour, and we’ll settle this then.” He didn’t sound so sure of himself now. He’d be thinking about the fight until lunch hour, wondering if he had bitten off more than he could chew.
Even though he was bigger than me, I felt sure I could beat him because I had received training. I knew that every kid in school would hear about the fight, and we were going to have a big audience. The teachers would know about it, also, but they wouldn’t interfere. It was a rite of passage, and they understood it. I suspect that they watched from behind curtained windows to make sure no one really got hurt. Bloody noses and black eyes were to be expected.
After the recess was over, we returned to the classrooms. Everybody was looking at me. All except the pretty girl with the blond curls and brown eyes—she was glaring at me.
Then I remembered. When Mrs. Pringle called the roll, this girl answered to the name of Rebecca Dully. The bully was her brother! This
was a no-win situation. I was sure not going to make friends with her by whipping her brother. But, brother or no brother, I decided I wasn’t going to let this bully whip me.
For the next two hours we had lessons in geography and history. Those were my favorite subjects, but the time still passed slowly. I wasn’t afraid, but I couldn’t get the fight off my mind. I knew we were going to get a spanking from the school principal. That, too, was standard procedure.
A kid sitting next to me told me that the principal had a big paddle in his office labeled, ‘Board of Education.’ I also knew that if I got marked up in any way, like getting a black eye or a cut lip, I would get a whipping when I got home. That was the whipping I was dreading. Father didn’t fool around when he gave you a whipping. He used his razor strap, and he always laid right into it.
Each morning, when I left for school, Mother would say, “Now don’t you get into a fight today, because if you do, you’ll get a whipping from the principal, and you’ll get another whipping when you get home. But now, don’t you take three whippings. If you get into a fight at school, you win that fight.”
I was going to get two whippings for sure. But I was going to win the fight with Joe Dully. Getting into a fight brought on a lot of trouble, and I just wanted to get it over with.
At long last the noon bell rang. I didn’t even take my lunch pail with me when I went into the schoolyard. I didn’t want to fight on a full stomach. If you get hit in the stomach right after eating, you might throw up. A lot of people were going to be watching, and I didn’t want that embarrassment.
The kids wouldn’t interfere no matter who won. It was my fight, and I had to deal with it. Father had trained me well, and I was going to take advantage of all the training he had given me.
Brief Moment in Time Page 5