MEMORIES OF THE 



the bank just back of the school-house, a sawmill with great piles 

 of logs and lumber surrounding the premises, a big ditch with a 

 mill-pond just a little way above, a steep hill just across the 

 creek, and other features of the topography which suggested and 

 made practicable the plays we adopted, which were according to 

 the age of those engaged — building little raceways, dams and 

 mills, tetering over logs, ''hi-spy" (or ''I spy"), swimming, 

 skating and sliding down hill, wrestling and black-man, with the 

 usual ''one old cat" and ''two old cat," for which we used a 

 soft ball wound from old stocking ravelings and covered with 

 leather. 



When it was necessary that the school-house should be 

 cleaned, it was done by making a bee and asking the large 

 scholars to come and bring soap, sand, mops and brooms, and 

 heat water and give it a good, thorough cleaning. There was no 

 janitor. The teacher did his or her own sweeping, and the men 

 teachers built their own fires in the winter, or, if they chose, 

 they hired some boy to do it for them. My avarice got the bet- 

 ter of me for two or three winters, and I did this work, building 

 fires and sweeping out the school-house for the teacher. It was 

 before the days of labor unions, and I did it for what I had a 

 mind to, or what the teacher had a mind to give me, which was 

 one cent for each morning, and I furnished my own kindling- 

 wood at that. At the end of the first winter I had coming to me 

 seventy-one cents. It set me up quite a little. I was in funds 

 as I never had been before. I really did not know how best to 

 invest my money, so mother took it for me and put it in an old 

 pewter teapot on the top shelf in the pantry. The per diem was 

 not all that I made out of it, for I had carefully saved the ashes, 

 and in the spring sold five bushels to an "ash-cat " for twelve 

 and one-half cents per bushel. 



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