The autumn following my fifth birthday which was in March. I remember some talk in our family about starting me to school. But I was adamantly opposed. I considered myself too little to go to school. I was big enough to drop corn in a furrow gather the eggs and do numerous small chores, but I would not be big enough to go to school until I was six. I assured them I would go when I was six. Looking back from my advanced point of more than seventy years. I can see it would have been something of a blessing for Ma to have had me in school. She was into the mid-forties and pretty well worn. I am sure. We last three boys must have been almost too much for her especially Fred and I. One of the deceased babies was between Millard and I. Being that much older studious and somewhat less rowdy. Millard probably never wore Ma down to the extent that we did.
From the time I can remember. Ma had formed the habit of taking an afternoon nap. One day while she dozed. I ran my whirligig close to her ear, then closer and closer, until suddenly it tangled in her hair. Unless you know what a whirligig is, you cannot appreciate the predicament both Ma and I were in! We made our whirligigs by threading a large button through both holes, then tying the string and putting it over each thumb, leaving the button in the middle. By twirling the string, it could he made to wind up tike the string of a yow-yow, and the button could be kept going indefinitely by moving the hands gently with a rhythmical motion. I got a good scolding for this and had to work for a long time untangling Ma’s hair. Another time I did not get off so well. However, this time I disobeyed a direct order.
It was the 4th of July. Everyone had gone to the picnic at Des Arc except Ma and Fred and I. Ma lay down for her afternoon nap, saying in no uncertain terms that I was not to get my flag to play with because Fred would want Millard’s flag and he might tear it up. A dear old neighbor lady, Grandma Smith had given Millard and me each a flag. But these flags were, put away high on the top shelf of a closet until Millard returned to take custody of his flag. This seemed a bit unfair to me. And after Ma embarked for the land of Nod. I pulled a chair over and took my flag down. I did not think Fred could possibly get the other flag; in my eyes he seemed like a very small boy, almost a baby. But I misjudged Fred’s ability. He somehow managed to climb up and get Millard’s flag; and he did tear it up!
When Ma awoke and saw what had happened, she came after me with a very purposeful stride. I ran out in the yard, Ma close at my heels. She paused long enough to lay hand on a switch, which was all too conveniently in her path.
My unusual shrieks soon brought a halt to the scourging, and Ma stood aghast as blood stains appeared over the back of my shirt and blood trickled down my naked legs. The switch she had so hastily picked up turned out to be a piece of a rosebush with many dried-down thorns on it! Together, Ma and I had a good cry. she furnishing the silent tears and I furnishing the noisy snubs!
The next year, at well over six, I started to school and quickly passed my somewhat younger classmates, making’ both first and second grades that year. My first teacher, Annie’ McAllister, was a pretty, brown-haired, country-feet girl.
She leaned a bit to the plump side, but that only added to her attractiveness. Most fellows of that time admired plump girls. Many of the girls were hefty, to one degree or another. An overly fat girl did not command much attention, but neither did an overly thin girl. A thin girl was considered, and she considered herself, to have a pretty serious problem beauty-wise. If the connection between fat and food had been understood at that time, a boney-type girl would no doubt, have stuffed herself on high caloric foods in an effort to put some meat on her bones. But the opinion prevailed that one was born to be fat or thin, according to some mysterious plan of nature. This was just beginning to be understood. The science of genetics, pioneered by Greg or Mendel, had been rediscovered in 1900, and extended by the discovery of chromosome and gene. The science of dietetics had not extended itself to our part of the world, if it existed at all. Such common modern words as calorie, vitamins and cholesterol formed no part of our vocabulary.
I liked Miss Annie very much, even though (or maybe because) she tried to kiss me the first day of school. Of course, she meant it only in fun, but I took it very seriously, and ran and hid under the school, house. If I had any thought she was setting her cap for me. I need not have worried. Before another school term, Pa had married her (Pa was a preacher) to a young man named Walter Lashley, of the Roberts School community on Big Creek. The contrast between Annie and my next teacher was marked. Miss Annie was reminiscent of bird songs on a sunny May morning. Mr. Terry resembled nothing as much as Father Time himself. Being past 70 years old, with a long white beard and having come from a faraway place called Tennessee, he seemed something of an alien to us. He was not as lively as Miss Annie, naturally, but he was interesting in his own peculiar way.
After winter days set in and fires burned in the big box stove, Mr. Terry brought raw meat for his lunch and cooked it over the coals in the stove, suspending it on a stick, wiener-roasting style. He seemed to believe that school should provide all the comforts of home, including frequent naps. When he could stay awake, Mr. Terry did a fairly good job of teaching. But I cannot recall that we ever complained about his dozing in school. I suppose we thought he needed his sleep more than we needed an education. Mr. Terry had only one fault that got under the hides of us boys. He was noticeably partial to the girls. This we did take a dim view of! He showed his partiality in many ways, but never so irritatingly as the times he would bring a bag of nice popcorn balls, or some other goodies, and pass them out among the girls, leaving us standing by; drooling and embarrassed.
When this occasional breech of man-nets occurred, Mr. Terry became “old man Terry” for several days, but of course, not in his presence. However, it was hard to stay mad at Mr. Terry, for he had a kind heart, except in this one respect and he seemed to love children. His favorite subject, his many years of teaching “down in Tennessee, we learned perhaps better than our text-book subjects. I am sure at that time we knew more about Tennessee than any place in the world, with the exception of our corner of Wayne County.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, according to whose viewpoint it was we often got longer recesses and noon hours than the Board of Education recommended. When some of us noticed that Mr. Terry had fallen asleep, we would all hide in the woods, which surrounded the school house on three sides. When he awoke, there would not be a kid in sight. He would come pottering out with his little bell, and ring all over the yard. Failing any response, he would start up the road, ringing every step. After he got a little distance away, we quickly scuttered in, and by the time he could potter back to the school house every child would be at his desk industriously applying himself to lessons. Mr. Terry seemed to realize, at such times, that he was at a disadvantage. He seemed disinc1t’ned to even scold us partly. I suspect, because the girls were in on these capers, and Mr. Terry would not punish a girl.
One winter day it began to snow early in the morning and snow fell thick and fast all day. Rapidly all outdoors transformed itself into a winter wonderland. Our eyes strayed to the windows ever so often throughout the day, the enchantment of the falling snow affecting our ability to concentrate on lessons. By the time school dismissed, the snowstorm had abated with an accumulation of something like ten inches. A beautiful sight greeted our eyes as we crowded out the door into a. world that was awe-inspiring and still, and not unpleasantly cold; a perfect day and a perfect snow for a good snow balling. We had been itching to get into it all day. However, we paused a moment, surveying the white magnificence in subdued wonder, before plunging into the battle.
We were pelting the girls with a vengence they scarcely could match when Mr. Terry came out and took in the situation. His big plush overcoat, plush cap, felt boots, and long white beard made him look for all the world like a Santa Claus in black and white. To see his poor little pets taking the worst end of a snow-balling was more than the old fellow could stand. This thing he had about girls might have been some kind of misshapen hang-over from the age of chivalry. Whatever it was, it was the most peculiar of Mr. Terry’s peculiarities. As far as we boys were concerned girls were not a special people and merited no favors not distributed equally to both sexes!
Setting his lunch pail down. Mr. Terry pitched in to help the girls. This is when the fun really began. With a kind of unspoken but mutual consent, we decided to get back at Mr. Terry for the goodies we did not get! Soon we had him down in the soft snow covering him over faster than he could paw out. We covered him up so completely that only his white beard, which looked yellow beside the snow sometimes popped out for an instant before another load of snow hit the mark. All this time the girls pounded our backs with snowballs, taking full advantage of the change in. battle tactics, but we had no time or inclination to notice them. Our battle was with Mr. Terry, and in that we were prevailing gloriously!
After awhile we thought we had gone far enough, so we dug Mr. Terry out, and helped him up, just a bit anxious to see how he was taking it. I am sure he did not enjoy it as much as we did, but he took it like a sport. That is what we liked about Mr. Terry. He had some kind of twisted up notion about girls, but he was a sport, always a sport. He taught sportsmanship by his example: and he might have been trying to give us an object lesson of some kind in his treatment of the girls, but if so, I suppose that one went over our heads! And it back-fired on him! I have sometimes wondered if he had visions of popcorn balls, nutty raisin cookies and homemade candy while he was buried beneath the snow.
We were glad to find him still jolly, so we worked almost as hard helping him get all the snow off, and out of beard, boots, and cap before it started to melt, as we did covering him up. It never occurred to us that, at his age, he might have suffered a heart attack from this drastic experience, or have taken pneumonia, and if such a thought occurred to him, he did not reveal it. We could not do otherwise than forgive Mr. Terry, and we knew for a certainty that he forgave us, that he loved us, not with goodies, but in some kind of manly way we could only sense. Warm and vivid memories of Mr. Terry, my second school teacher, linger, even after seventy years.
