The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-01-18
SCHOOL DAYS BEFORE THE WAR

0SnOOA OA40 DMCOhG 4dG WAX
In My young days things and folks
was not like they are now. The young
folks had a good time and so did the
old ones for that matter. / have been
a thinking lately of the difference in
the children now and when | was bein'
brought up, I tell you the children
nowadays don't know what fun like VS.
used to have is, even if their mothers
don't use the hickory. I believe variety
is the spice Of life, and all the sugar
and candy a little fellow wants amt
best for him. Why, you believe me,
they do say now that q woman amt
human if she whips her own children.
I cant see how it is, and l am sorry for
them. I hope the little fellows wont
whip them when they grow up; but
we old folks know some whippin' has
got to come in some where.
Sure thing 1 caught it when I was
little and I believe it made a woman of
me, if I do say it. Jeems CHATS my
old man) says that I didn't get half
enough, but how does he knows
! remember the first school I yer
went to. The teacher was as good a
woman as you ever see, if she was an
old maid, an we all loved her. She
let me play most of the time so she
ruined me SO far as study's concerned
for the rest Of my life. Learned my
letters but how did I learn 'em9 Bless
you child, I could sing 'em backwards
and for wards; but wouldn't q knowed
the name of one of 'em if I had met it
in the road. When she put her pencil
on n I would streak down that line
like litenin' Ito myself like) and when
l got to the n she was pointin' at, l
knowed it every time, Spellin'7 I
couldn't spell. Them letters was puz
lers. I did learn my a b. c's., after so
long a time-not at every day school
but Sunday-school, and Webster's blue
back speiler was the book I learned
them out of, too. A man was my
teacher there.
Children started to school in my
day, long before they think of it now.
I was about four years old when I
went and we had to go ove two miles
and be there by sun up and till most
sun down. We had one hour at twelve
o'clock and it was such a short hour
and what a time we did have pleyin'.
All Of US loved base, the best, but fox
and goose come next. The girls was as
fast as the boys-I mean a-runnin'.
One frosty mornin' we got started
late and my hair was mighty curly, SO
l forgot to comb it. My sister who
was older than me, had walked as fast
as she could all the way from home, I
reckon she forgot I had to make two
steps to her one, and we vas most in
sight of the school house, when she
hollered for me to come on or we would
be late. I was most out of breath and
my side about in two, but I struck a
trot and jerked off my bonnet. I wish
you could have seen her; she was most
blue, and, settin' our dinner bucket in
in the middle of of the path, she says:
"You lazy thing I'll comb lit" and
she did, usin' Of her fingers for the
comb, and before she finished I says to
myself; II Won forget it any more"
And I didn't!
One or two of the scholars had been
to a show some time or other, 90 we
would play circus with them. The big
boys would turn summersets and walk
on their heads and the girls would
jump the rope and turn round and
round, to see who could make the
biggest hoop skirt. TIE clown was the
smartest one OF all for he could sit fat
on the ground, double himself up, stick
his big toe in his mouth and turn over
with it in there. but I always saw it
was out when be landed.
Our school house (made of logo set
in the edge of a old field with a pine
thicket in front. 1t had two doors one
in front and one behind it. The seats
were so high that our feet didn't reach
the floor and we had to set bolt upright
for the seats had no backs.
But l amt foFgettin' the good times I
had at that little log school house, and
I doubt il any of the children no wadays
are as happy as we was, a playin' base
in hat little pine thicket nearly
forty years Rg0.-AUNT WINEIE.
"A n ! ia the soasop oF vear whan