Chapter 7

Schooldays & Fun!!

I never saw the school house that my father and mother attended but they told us about it.  It sat across the spring trail north of the present Union church building on the west side of the road.  It was made of logs and had no windows.  There was a huge fireplace at one end.  The pupils sat on puncheon seats (logs sawed flat on two sides, with holes bored in each end and posts stuck in for legs).  They had no backs.

Among books studied in their school, was the blue black speller.  Mama, even when she was a little girl, and Wylie Dempsey, were the best spellers in school.  Mama and Papa used to amuse us by spelling for us—spelling and pronouncing each syllable of the word separately and adding them to the preceding syllable until every syllable was spelled and pronounced, thus: the world is “incomprehensible”, i-n in, c-o-m com, incom, p-r-e pre, incompre, h-e-n hen, incomprehen, s-i si, incomprehensi, b-l-e, incomprehensible.

They learned the vowels and consonants by singing them, taking the first consonant and singing it with each succeeding vowel through the alphabet; b-a ba, b-e be, b-i bitty bi, b-o bo, bitty bi bo, b-u bu, bitty bi bo bu, etc., on through the vowels and consonants this way.

Jack Young, Coleman Bean and Charlie Swan were among the teachers.  Jack Young was very athletic, running, jumping and playing with the children and when he rang the bell after recess and “dinner” he lined them up and marched them to the spring for a drink and to wash their faces, then marched them back to school.  Mr. Young was my mother’s first teacher.  The first day she went to school, she forgot her bonnet at the spring.  When she missed it, she pulled out of the line and ran back to get it and was late getting back to school.  Mr. Young scolded her and she cried, then he petted her and from that day on she was one of the teacher’s pets—but she never appreciated it, for she never liked being petted.

Papa said that the first day Mama went to school he though she was the prettiest little girl he ever saw, with little fat legs and feet.  From that day on she was always the prettiest girl to him.

There were two terms of school each year – winter school and summer school.

My teachers at Union were Mr. Charlie Swan, Miss Sue Bagley and Mr. Robert Ingram.  Teachers at Macedonia were Miss Sulta Nighten and Miss Florence Pruitt. 

Mr. Swan drove to school from his home on Swan Branch, in a little one-horse wagon, picking up little children as he went.  How well I remember my first day of school.  Mama wrapped me in a big red shawl, put a navy blue cap on me, and I ran down to the road to ride in that little wagon, sitting in the bottom of the bed with a wagonful of little ones.  Lessie Mitchell and Vistula Strickland sat with Mr. Swan on the spring seat.

Mr. Swan was a low man with short legs and club feet.  He was very strict in some respects, never sparing the rod.  Sometimes he required help with unruly students.  One time in particular, he had Monroe Knight standing up for breaking a rule.  Monroe decided to go home.  He ran and jumped out the door and started running.  Mr. Swan started chasing him.  It was raining and the ground was slick and Mr. Swan slipped down.  One of the big boys ran and caught Monroe and brought him back.

Some of the big boys did as they pleased, though.  Once Harrison Carter and J.D. Strickland got upset about something and jumped out the window and sat on the ground.  Mr. Swan tried to make them come back inside, but they wouldn’t until he gave in to them.

Mr. Robert Ingram was a kind teacher.  He opened school every morning with a prayer and was so sympathetic with his students.  He hated so badly to have to whip one, but he would if necessary with tears rolling down his face as he did so.  I shall never forget when Mr. Ingram stayed all night with us.  We all sat around the fireplace and listened to him talk, using our very best manners and trying to show him a good time.  He complimented me when I played the organ, and complimented all the good things Mama cooked, especially the ruffled muffins for us to take for lunch the next day.

Patriotism was taught, and February 22 and July 4 were great days for celebrations, especially the year Miss Sue Bagley taught at Union.  Before July 4th, we spent days getting ready for the occasion, rehearsing speeches and songs, and marching until we had it perfect.  Then, on the 3rd, the boys went to the woods and brought back loads of tree branches, holly, pine and ferns.  The stage was decorated with greenery, then bunting and flags put in exactly the right places.  One the morning of the 4th, the very air was filled with excitement.  People came from miles around, bring baskets of food.  I remember that Mr. Mace Gregg, Robert Gregg’s father, an old man with flowing whiskers, was there with Montana, his daughter from Randolph County.

The morning was spent with speech making and the singing of songs – patriotic speeches and patriotic songs.  How it rang as we sang, “Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue”.  Miss Carrie McCann sang “The Star Spangled Banner”.

The afternoon was spent mostly in marching.  The whole school marched, double file, Harrison Carter and Perla Dempsey leading, carrying a large U. S. flag.  The rest of us carried small flags which Miss Sue had given us.  We marched according to size, and Howard Elder and I, being the smallest ones marching, brought up the rear.  We marched up and down the road, “one, two, one, two” round and round over the school ground and church yard, every step in time, in and out, in and out, forming different designs—the stars and stripes of Old Glory waving proudly in the breeze.  There was no band nor music of any kind to march by, just the count of “one, two…” by the leader to keep time to—we did perfectly as Miss Sue had taught us.

I had never seen a brass band nor even heard one.  Can you imagine being eight years old and never having seen a band, not even on television?  But you know, there was no television then, not even radio.  Papa had seen bands in Oxford and Anniston and had told us about them.  So as we marched, I could almost hear the “pom, pom, pom pom” of the drum and the blare of the trumpet as we went, stepping high, feeling proud that we were Americans.  Harrison could holler “halt” so loud it echoed among the trees and against the hills.  The crowd cheered with loud whoops and hand clapping.  How proud Miss Sue was of us and how we loved her!  We marched downtown, in at Mr. uller’s store door, out at the back, up the back street and back to the school house.  We were a tired bunch that night, but happy.

The last day of Mr. Ingram’s school Alec Smith, two days older than I, and I won awards for being the best spellers in school—getting the most head marks, and that afternoon spelling everyone in school down in a spelling match—big boys and girls and all.  Finally I missed a word and Alec was the champion speller.  That night there was a concert, with a stage outside in front of the school house, with wagon sheets for curtains, and seats from the church houses.  The place was covered with people.  There was a black-face skit in which Harrison Carter looked something like the late Nat King Cole, dialogues and many things.  Mr. Old Joe Smith, with his family string band was there making the valley ring with music of which there was none equal anywhere in the country.

Miss Florence Pruitt and Miss Sulta Nighten were my teachers at Macedonia.  Once a thunder storm came, and Miss Florence dismissed classes. Essie Pate was leading a song and what looked like a ball of fire came through the house, with a clap of thunder sounding at the same time.  Miss Florence fell over.  We thought she was killed.  Essie Pate and Tom and Wyatt Newsome were almost grown, and seeing she was not dead, started working with her.  Grady Davis, a little boy, ran through the rain to Mr. Wilf’s, his grandfather’s, to get some camphor.  Mrs. Wilf came back with him and with the aid of the camphor, Miss Florence was soon all right.  After the rain stopped, we went outside.  Lightning had struck a pine tree about two feet from the corner of the house and stripped the bark from it.

When there was no school, there were so many interesting things to do.  We played in the woods all the year round, climbing trees, hunting nuts and berries, making pine straw houses, and play houses among the trees—separating the rooms with ribbons made of leaves stretched from one tree to another, sometimes with every room carpeted with deep green velvety moss.

How wonderful in spring and summer under the leafy bowers of sweetgum, hickory or pine, leaves rustling with the slightest breeze, fanning and cooling as our fingers flew, piecing aprons and sashes and fashioning hats from leaves pinned together with little sticks or weeds.  The hats were trimmed with wild flowers and ferns, with treamers made of leaves—the most wonderful hats in all the world to childish eyes.

There were fern watches to be made, silk to be stripped from the silk grass, and pocket books to be picked from the little pocket book bushes that grew along the roadside.

In the woods there were always rider-horses.  When you wanted to go somewhere, just go climb a sapling (hickory made the best), swing out, holding on to the top, pull it to the ground, jump on and off you went in a long lope, up and down, up and down.  When you reached your destination you got off and up went the sapling back into place.  Just climbing hickory saplings to the top and swinging out was fun.  The poet, Robert Frost, liked to climb birch trees and swing out.  He said, “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches”.

Blacksmith shops were great places to play and most people had a blacksmith shop at home.  We loved to pump the bellows, work the vise and pound the anvil.  Stable lofts were ideal playhouses when they were empty.  There was usually a ladder handy to go upstairs and the stables were often swept clean to play in.  We could stick a rail through a crack in the fence and seesaw all day long if we wished.  Playing on the cotton in the cotton house was funny in the fall.  We would loosen up the cotton and get up on something high and jump off, bogging up in the cotton to our ears.  Once, Chester made a big cotton doll out of flour sacks, painted its face and embroidered its features.  He dressed it in some of his clothes and put a hat on it and set it on the cotton with his air rifle lying across its lap.  It looked very much like a little black boy sitting there.  One day, Jim Robb (black) who lived in the mountains came by and stopped to talk with Papa.  He was that doll and rode his mule up to the door and sat there looking at it and laughing.  He would slap himself and say, “Now ain’t that something?  Looks jes’ like a lump o’ have mercy settin’ there”, then he would laugh some more.

There were not many toys in the valley in those days.  Most of the playthings were homemade.  The most important was the truck wagon.  All the boys had one.  They were made by sawing blocks about two or three inches thick off a tree trunk, boring holes in the middle for wheels and attaching an axle and tongue, then fastening a box to it.  This made a two-wheel wagon or cart.  Many of them had four wheels with a coupling tongue, a long bed made of planks, and operated much like the little red wagons from the stores.  These wagons were useful for hauling the baby around, hauling wood or baskets of cotton, watermelons or pumpkins from the field.

Homemade sleds were a lot of fun for both boys and girls.  Papa made ours and waxed the runners with beeswax until they were slick as glass.  I took mine to school and what fun we had sliding down the steep hill way over in the woods behind the school house.

Perhaps hickory bark whips were not considered playthings, but some boys used them.  They were made by braiding long strips of bark and fastening them to a stock.  They could be made to pop like an ox whip and could be heard for half a mile or more.

One Sunday afternoon, some girls started home from Mt. Zion.  When they reached the top of the hill by the cemetery, they heard what they though were gun shots on Gray Hill.  They ran back to town and told someone.  Some men got horses and went over the hill but found nothing.  Someone had seen Jessie Cline, not long before, walking up the road with a hickory bark whip.  They decided it was him popping his whip.

There were Tom Walkers (stilts) to walk on, hickory bark whistles, stick horses, elder stalk popguns that shot paper wads and dancers made of spools.

We never lacked for something to play with.  We made squawkers of onion blades by wilting them over a steaming teakettle, or hot stove, pinching the end off and blowing through them, flopping them with our fingers until they started flopping by themselves and squawking.  And there were always games to play—chicktum oraney crow, drop the handkerchief, hide and seek, blindfold, William Trembletoe, etc.

The last Saturday night we spent at home in Alabama, Ida and Cora Clark, Annie Strickland, Lula Newsome and Lessie Carter spent the night with us.  Papa and Chester were late getting home from Oxford.  Ada Ducke came out there, and she and Mama played games with us in the yard.  We had so much fun, laughing and hollering so loud Anderson Strickland said they heard us at their house, about a mile away across the fields, against the mountain.