Chapter 5 of Tales I Can Remember, by Elsie Swagerty Burton
My next memory of school is at Four Trees. The name was in honor of the four trees planted on each side of the building. It was a one room school with but one teacher for all eight grades. I have quite a few memories of this period.
I spent most of my second grade going to this school. There were two others in second grade, a boy named Glen and a very shy little girl whose name I do not remember. A pony and a two wheeled cart was provided for my transportation. The boys in the older grades were assigned the chore of un-hitching the pony and feeding and watering him during the day, then re-hitching him for me to drive home in the afternoon.
That pony was aware that I was just a little girl and he could more or less do as he pleased, and he did. In fact, he walked almost all of the time instead of trotting as he was expected to do. I was always late for school. The pony was partly to blame for this tardiness, but not entirely. My parents were almost always late for whatever occasion. Some seven-year-olds are maybe mature enough to be responsible for their own comings and goings, but I certainly was not, nor was I encouraged to be. I almost always started for school when I could not have possibly been on time, but I also had another little trick to make it even more probable that I would not.
My cousin, Iona, who was almost two years younger than I, lived about a mile down the road on my way to school. I hated to be alone with that beast of a horse for the four miles to school, so I frequently stopped to get my Aunt Lulu, Iona’s mother, to prepare her for a visit to school and to prepare lunch for the day. This took much too much time, especially when I hadn’t asked her in advance.
I had another trick I pulled to make my arrival at home late as well. I would wait a half hour after my class was out for Sibyl, a fourth grader, to ride home with me to her home which was half of the distance home. Besides I often stayed to play for awhile. During the winter months It would get too close to dark for me to safely do that, but I did it anyway even when asked not to; so I had to be forbidden to do it. The first time I was going home, not expecting to stop at Sibyl’s, the pony, relying on habit, stopped abruptly. I somersaulted over the front of the cart and landed unhurt at the horse’s heels. I was really shook up. I ran into Sibyl’s mother for sympathy and direction. Her only solution was to get into the cart and go on home. I couldn’t believe she could be so unfeeling. (In a world of no telephones, parents were not harassed with nonsense calls as they can be today. I surely would have called and expected to be picked up and petted that day.)
The pony decided one fine day that he did not care for the walk to school. He got about a half mile down the lane and proceeded to turn around, regardless of my protesting, and went back home. He picked the wrong day to do it, however. Father had not yet gone to work. He got in with me and my memory tell me he whipped that beast all the way to school.
I felt that Father was very cruel, but then I thought him cruel anyway, so that just reinforced my opinion. (Let me say that my father was not a particularly cruel man but he was the authority figure and a disciplinarian and seldom had time for much else with us children. We lived with the families most of the time, and the time that could have been sent with children was most likely spent with adults in the households. Then, too, his jobs took him away from the family overnight a great deal. His harsh side was most evident to me. He was in fact very determined that his children would be well behaved, especially since there were other adults to please besides himself and mother so much of the time. Many times his punishments were melted out in embarrassment and frustration, I am sure. While he seldom punished me physically, he did my brothers whenever he felt it justified.
I remember doing something else for the first time that morning, also. I rolled sown my stockings and rolled up my long johns. You see one fine day in the fall, whenever my father decreed it, we all put on our winter underwear. I don’t know what prompted him, but it seemed arbitrary to me. I suppose some cold spell trigged him, but invariably we would have a warm spell before winter would set in for good and there we were where stuck with heavy underwear. It must have been a warm spell just then because I remember wishing I didn’t have on that long underwear and the long cotton stockings. I rolled the legs of those underpants up under the outer under pants and rolled those stockings down to just below my knees for that day. I felt so wicked for disobeying. I had my revamping accomplished before anyone else had arrived at school.
The teacher was so delighted to have me at school on time that I was allowed to ring the bell to start classes. This honor was regularly rotated among the students, but because I most likely would never be there again on time, I was allowed to do it that day. Pure joy!
There was a day when the students from several schools gathered. It was a day of competition. There were athletic contests as well as entertainment. I was to recite a poem for this occasion. For weeks and weeks I had been practicing until I was letter perfect. My parents, my teacher and I had really worked hard on this and we were all confident of my achievement. The poem was “My Shadow Goes In and Out With Me.” I had to wait my turn, I remember, but finally there I was, out in the middle of the stage looking out at all those strangers. My teacher was right out in front, however, I felt so all alone and small. There I was with stage fright. I could not say a word. The teacher cued me and then cued, but never could I go on. It was completely humiliating. They finally came on stage and guided me off. Sometime during that day, before or afterwards, I ran a race against much bigger girls and came in second. That helped some.
I have a much pleasanter memory of another event at that school. For Christmas that year our school put on a program for our parents. We dramatized “A Christmas Carol.” I played one of Tiny Tim’s older, mischievous sisters and got to pretend to break a window. There was crashing glass and everything; that was fun!
At one time Glen, one of the other second graders of whom I thought highly, had puppies to give away. I got permission to get one and I took Glen home with me in my cart so that he could give me the puppy. The puppy was for the entire family and not just for me, which did not please me at all. That poor puppy got loved so much and so often that it could not survive. While I felt it was my brothers’ fault, I was sure they played with it too much while I was at school. Still, I felt so guilty that I never did tell Glen about what had happened to the puppy he had given me.
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