The Meeker herald., 1912-05-04
School. OF Big Bill And Linle Bill

little town OF less tnhn osVU AuuoU
itants. We boys lived In the wo0da
and In the water all summer and
lived In the woods and on the Ice all
winter. We trapped and hunted ana
played in the woods; we rowed and
fished and built dams and cut stick
horses and kept stick horse livery
stables In the woods under the paw.
paw bushes with grape vines hanging
down. We climbed the trees and cut
saplrngs, and sucked the juice Of the
vines and squashed the pokeberries,
and picked the wild grapes and
gooseberries and raspberries, and In
the winter on the ice ate hackberries.
In the autumn we gathered the wal
nuts, and in the spring we greeted
the flowers, sweet williams and
Johnny-jump-ups, as they came peer
ing through the mold.
Always we seemed to be out Of
doors, getting acquainted with our
environment. You know a tree when
you have climbed 1t, or cut sapling
to make ''nigger shooter" fork from
it. You know the birds and the
woodland animals when you have
chased them, and you know the
flowers when you have waited for
them to come. So the woods were
part Of my school.
And the barn, also, was cOnsid-
cradle part of my curriculum. The
chores a boy does are liberal educa-
ton in manual work. And l took
my course without stint. 1t Is
something to know how easily hack
berry splits; how tough hickory IL
under the saw; how mean elm is to
handle, and how walnut falls apart
under the AK. A certain dexterity
comes to the boy who teaches calf
to drink and Stops hogs without soiltng
his Sunday clothes in the evening.
Also the hay makes scrobats. In the
loft one learns to turn fiip-fiops, and
with a lariat rope he can make
trapeze and do many interesting
things. My rings were made by pad
ding the iron rings from hubs OF a
lumber wagon, and swinging them
from the rafters.
Bill-our little boy Bill-has bet
ter school than / had so far as this
school house and all that goes with
and in 1t are concerned. They have
more scientific methods; they know
more accurately what they are about
than they did that taught us In the
old days, nearly forty years ago.
They have more ''method," and /
feel sure Bill is getting many things
from his school indoors that / did
not get. Yet / feel that he Is growing
up with woefully secondhand ideas
of life. What does Bill know about
the woods, and the flowers and the
trees and the crops of Lyon county,
Kansas? What does he know about
Lyon county and its streams-that I
knew of Butler county, from living
on them?
The silversides used to live In the
puddles under the limestone lodges
by the old stone quarry, and the
snakes used to sun themselves there
at noon, the sensitive rose with GIN
namon-scented flowers and its curling
leaves used to bloom on the prairie
in May for me and little brown
eyed girl who found them In her ink
bottle at noon. We roamed far and
wide over the prairies in the spring
and picked wild flowers and though
wild. thoughts and dreamed wild
dreams-children's dreams. sup
pose little Bill dreams them In fifty
foot lot and with only his mothers
flowers under the caves and in their
beds to teach him the great mystery
of life. Bill has no barn. doubt II
he can ''skin a cat" and 1 am sure
he cannot do the big drop from the
trapeze. To turn a flip-fop would
fill him with alarm, yet Bill Belts,
down in Eldorsdo, used to turn
double fiip-fop over a stack of bar
rels, and Bill Belts is man to look
at. He is built by the day. He has an
educated body, and it is going into
its middle forties with health and
strength that onr boy, Bill, may have
to " ork for.
1t all amounts to this: That my
school was life and the living Of 1t.
The woods and the chores and the
play and the books and the teachers
seemed to be part of reality. Bills
school seems real enough. But his
play and work seem rather empty.
His manuel work is the best he can
do. But 1t has not trained his hands,
as work with an ak or a jack-knife
might, it seems to me. He still has
krc,,hIo With hja nina tjmoa aiy hio