There was a private school being taught at the Hagan School house about a mile from our house, and I started to school at once. The children of our near neighbor, Mr. King were attending school and in going to the schoolhouse they came by our house. I always had company on our road to school. The names of the King children were James, Jane, Melissa, John and Lucy. The three first named were nearly grown. I often wonder why Jim, as he was called, was not in the army. He seemed to be a stout hearty young man, and at age subject to military duty, but possibly he may have had some disability which exempted him from service in the army. I am not positive, but I am of the opinion that Mr. King’s sympathies were with the southern Confederacy. He had died while we were gone to Indiana, and Jim was the main support of the family as John, the other boy, was not as old as I and not large enough to do farm work. The children of another neighbor, Mr. Wesley Louden, also went the same road I did to school but I have forgotten the name of all of them but one boy whose name was Noah. They had a sister who was, I suppose twenty-five or thirty years old who stayed at our house part of the time that winter and assisted Mother with the housework. Her name was Margaret Ann. The Hagan schoolhouse was a small log building about 16 feet square with a clapboard roof and a puncheon floor. It had a stone chimney, the fireplace of which was about four feet wide. I think there was only one window in the house but there had been a log about three feet from the floor on one side of the house cut out leaving an opening nearly the length of that side. A large plank the length and width of the opening was hinged to the log below the opening, and when raised to close the opening, was fastened in three or four places to the log above the opening. There were several large auger holes in the lag just below the opening into which pegs the size of the auger holes and as long as the width of the plank had been driven for the plank to rest upon when it was unfastened and let down. This was our writing desk and the opening gave us good light when we were writing, which was twice each day, morning and afternoon, unless it was too cold; ten or twelve seated on a long bench could write at one time.

There was a large spring nearby at the foot of the hill on which the schoolhouse was located, at which we got our drinking water. Two boys were given permission by the teacher every morning and every afternoon to take the large water bucket and bring it full of water from the spring. Permissions of this kind were granted to the pupils by the teacher from a list, the favor being given them by turn, so that no two would be granted permission more often than others. We were always glad to bring water, so we could be absent from our studies for awhile and usually longer than we should have been. No one was allowed to leave his or her seat and go to the water bucket for a drink, but some boy or girl was designated at intervals to pass the water, each pupil being given a cup full or more. The schoolhouse was across Niangua Creek from our house, and our road to school was part of the way down a long steep hill to the creek which we crossed on a foot log. After crossing the creek we went a path across Mr. Hagan’s cotton field and past his log dwelling house up a steep hill to the schoolhouse. Mr. Hagan’s field was in corn that year and among the corn there was a large number of pumpkins and crook neck squashes, which Mr. Hagan called cushaws. He said they were better to eat than pumpkins. The teacher of the school was Mr. William Hale, and he taught us spelling, reading, writing, geography and arithmetic, but his specialty seemed to be spelling. We had two big lessons in Webster’s blue back spelling book every day, and Mr. Hale insisted on good well prepared lessons, else the same lesson would be assigned for the next recitation. Invariably we would have a spelling match every Friday afternoon.. Two "captains" would always divide the pupils of the school by alternate choices into two equal divisions, who would be seated on long benches an opposite sides of the school house. Sometimes two spellers, one from each division, usually beginning with the last chosen, would stand before the teacher and spell alternate words pronounced by the teacher, until one of therm misspelled a word, which if correctly spelled by the other, the vanquished speller would return to his seat, and be replaced by the next chosen speller in that division. If both of the spellers missed the same work both of them were vanquished, and there places were taken by the next chosen spellers from the respective divisIons. Sometimes a speller would be chosen by the captain of each side as "trappers" and the two divisions would stand and spell words pronounced the same as in a class. If a speller misspelled a word and the trapper on the other side spelled it correctly, the pupil missing the work was "turned down". The process in each method of spelling was continued until all were vanquished, except one speller, who became the champion speller of that spelling match. The pupils were always glad when Friday afternoon came and we all enjoyed the contested spellings very much. In the spelling contests, the division to which the champion speller belonged, of course was the victor, which was considered a great honor.

There were a number of pupils attending the school, who were nearly grown, and at the recesses in the morning and afternoon and the intermission from noon till one o'clock, these larger pupils, together with many of those from ten to fourteen years old, would engage in playing town ball, a game somewhat similar to more modern baseball, base and other strenuous games. I remember that at the noon hour we often had exciting games of base, in which some of the fleet runners would engage in a chase which often took then a mile or more from the playground and occasionally they would get so far away that they did not get back to the playground until some time after the afternoon session of school began. The truant speedsters would have to explain to the teacher why they were late in making their appearance at school that afternoon. They were almost always successful in convincing the teacher they were not intentional truants.

Chapter nine continued...

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