Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

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CHAPTER IX
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS
RECALL the day, and even the hour, when
I3rother Will and I were dressed up to start for
our first experience in school. Mother never
sent a child to school to learn his letters, so after
getting Brother Will to the point where he could
read short sentences in the old blue-backed
Webster's spelling-book, and when I could spell
etters — "a-b ab, i-b ib, o-b ob, u-b ub," and the
we were pronounced fit to enter district
school. We started in one afternoon to begin our school days.
Mother, although a busy woman, could not tolerate uncombed
hair or dirty faces or soiled garments. We two sisters always
wore stiffly starched, corded bonnets of buff or pink chambray
gingham. I recall the fact that on this occasion mother tied
under my chin a pink bonnet of her best make.
It was after dinner when all arrangements were made and
we were on the road to Finneytown Cross Roads, where stood
a large church, the basement of which was used as a schoolroom
— the district school. I remember as we passed along
the w^ay we stopped to watch the mud wasps gathering their
balls of clay with which to build nests, when all at once it occurred
to us that we were on our way to school. We quickened
our steps and were soon at the schoolroom door, where we
paused until Miss Ruth Perkins came out to take us by the
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