Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1877-05-03
A Country school

When / was little girl, / went to
little school, which was kept by avery
little lady, in a very little house. The
little lady herself lived in another lit
tie house, which was divided from the
little school house only by alittle gar
den. 1 did not know then how little
the houses, and the garden, and my
school teacher were. Miss Caroline
seemed large and powerful to me; and
as for her ferule, it looked bigger to
me than the big trees of California
looked when saw them q few years
ago. But when l went back, q grown
woman, to my old home, and walked
past Miss Caroline's cottage and the
little old school house, hardly could
believe my eyes, everything was so
tiny; and could have picked Miss
Caroline up under my arm. -
The school house had been a shoe
makers shop once, and some of the
shOemaker's furniture had been left in
it. There was the bench on which he
used to sit and work; this had a little
open box at one end, where he used to
keep his tools; this bench stood in the
middle of the room, in front Miss Caro-
lines desk, and all the classes sat on it
to recite their lessons. The end which
had the open box on it was called the
head of the class. Once / kept up at
the head in spelling, whole week,
and / grew so used to having hold of
the edge of the box, and slipping my
fingers back and forth on it, that when
l lost my place, and had q boy or a
girl on my left side, had hard work
not to keep all the time taking hold OF
their arms, instead of the box. There
used to be also a little drawer under
the bench, at this end; but Miss Caro-
line had that taken off, after she found
out that it was there Ned Spofford hid
the 'spit-balls' he used to fire up and
down all the classes he recited il. Oh,
what bad boy Ned Spofford was! But
how we all did like him! Even Miss
Caroline herself, / think, liked him
better than any other scholar in all the
school; and yet he gave her twice as
much trouble as all the other scholars
put together. But he was so good ma
tured and affectiouate that nobody
could help loving him, in spite OF his
mischief. He never resisted nor strug-
gled when she had to punish him. l.
really think he got feruled as often as
once q week; but he used to hold out
his hand the minute she told him to,
and look straight in her eyes while she
struck him. Sometimes he would cite
his lips, and the tears would come into
his eyes, but he never cried nor begged
off, as the rest of US did. He was as
brave as he was mischievous. Even
when he had TO sit on the dunce-stool
for twenty minutes with his mouth
wide open and q piece Of eorn-eob set
firmly between his teeth, he never
cried. This was Miss Caroline's worst
punishment. l think If she herself
had tried ii once, to see how mueh IL
hurt, she never would have had the
heart to infiict it on us. At first, when
she wedged in the piece OF cob, you isis
like laughing that anybody should
think such a thing as that could De
much of punishment; but pretty soon
your jaws began to ache, and then the
back of your neck ached, and then the
pain reached up into the back OF your
head, and into your ears, and IL De-
came real torture; there was not sim
gle boy in school that could bear IL
without the tears streaming down his
cheeks, except Ned Spoiford. Miss
Caroline very rarely did It to- girls; l
think no one but Sarah kellogg ana
ever had it. We were the worst giris
in school; we two and Ned Sponoru
were the three black sheep In Miss
Caroline's little fiock.-From ine
Tirst Time." by Sake Holm, ST MICH
olas for May. ,,.is s,f-,r.s