Smyrna times., 1877-05-09
MiSceLLUU e OUS.
A Country School.

When | was a little girl, | went to a
little school, which was kept by a very
little lady, in u very little house. The
little lady herself lived in another little
house, which was divided from the little
school-house only by a little garden. did
not know then how little the houses, and
the garden, and my schoolteacher 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 few years ago.
But when went back, grown woman, to
my old home, and walked past Miss Caro-
lines 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 shoe
makers 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 of Miss Caroline's 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, a 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
lost my place, and had boy or girl on my
left side, l had hard work not to keep all
the time taking hold of their arms, instead
of the box. There used to be also little
drawer under the bench, at this end; but
Miss Caroline had that taken off, after she
found out that it was there Ned Spofford
hid the "spit-balls" he used to fire up and
2 down all the classes he recited in. Oh
what bad boy Ned Spofford wasl Bu
how we all did like him! Even Mis-
Caroline herself, think, liked him bette
than any other scholar in the school; anC
yet he gave her twice as much trouble as al
the other scholars put together. But h
was so good-natured and affectionate tha
nobody could help loving him, in spite o
his mischief. He never resisted nor strug
gled when she had to punish him. reall
think he got feruled as often as once
week; but he used to hold out his han
the minute she told him to, and loo
straight into her eyes while she struck hin
Sometimes he would bite his lips, and tn
tears would come to his eyes, but he nevt
cried, nor begged off, as the rest of us dit
He was as brave as he was mischievou
Even when he had to sit on the dune
stool for twenty minutes with his mout
wide open and a piece of corn-cob s
firmly between his teeth, he never crie
This was Miss Caroline's worst punishment
think if she herself had tried it once,
see how much it hurt, she would nev
have had the heart 10 infict it on us. !
first, when she wedged in the piece
cob, you felt like laughing that anyboc
should think such thing as that could
much of a punishment; but pretty so,
your jaws began to ache, and then the ba
of your neck ached, and then the pa
reached up into the back of your hea
and into your ears, and it became r,
torture; there was not single boy
school that could bear it without the te,
streaming down his cheeks, except n
spoford. Miss Caroline very rarely did
to girls; think no one but Sarah Kello
and ever had it. We were the wo
girls in school; we two and Ned Spoffs
were the three black sheep in Miss Ca
lines little Aock.-From "1he First Tin
by SAGE Holm, 81. Nicholas for May.