A Second Home: Missouri's Early Schools

6. The Scholars’ Day

We went to Possumtown through rain storms and blizzards. My father, bless him, would get up early and make a path through the snow for us. My dear mother would massage our hands and feet when we returned home. Discipline was heavy and the teacher was always right, even though my father asked for fairness from the teacher and the truth from his children. — Bobby Flock, Osage County Historical Society Newsletter T he child “scholars” often had to tend to chores before leaving for school. Sometimes older children helped dress and feed their younger brothers and sisters. When the chores were done, it was time to wash up under the pump or from a bucket of water, pack a lunch, and start out for school. In Pulaski County Rural Schools, Frank Case tells about his mornings before going to Needmore School: Dad and I would go outside and do our morning chores. We had to feed the horses, pigs, chickens and feed and milk the cows. . . . By the time we had the chores done and had come inside, Mom would have cooked breakfast on the wood stove. . . . We always had homemade biscuits and gravy with butter that Mom had churned from sweet cream and homemade jelly made from berries or fruit she had 67 Chapter Six The Scholars’ Day 68 picked. We only had eggs when the hens were laying good and meat at butchering time in the fall and winter. Lunch was often leftovers from breakfast, but the food varied depending on the family’s economic circumstances. Biscuits or corn bread filled with hard-fried eggs, bits of bacon, some ham or sausage or molasses and butter, thin slices of fried mush or deep-fried potatoes, and in some seasons a piece of meat from a home-cured rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, or deer were packed in molasses tins or pokes (paper sacks) or wrapped up in cloth to take to school. Fresh fruit such as apples, peaches, or strawberries might be picked on the way to and from school. Chicken was a rare treat. In The History of Rural Schools of Putnam County, 1843–1965, a teacher from Friendship School describes what happened one day when two sisters brought chicken for lunch. The older girl wanted everyone to know they had chicken. She called loudly to her the sister, “If you want your piece of ‘chicking’ you had of thee better come and get it.” Gladys Handley of Plattsburg said, “Sometimes I’d have a boiled egg and I’d have to take a little piece of newspaper and put some salt on it and fold it real careful so it wouldn’t spill. Mother always had biscuits. I’d take a biscuit.” Homer Croy wrote in Country Cured that at noon, when he opened his dinner bucket, “there would be a package with grease spots showing through the brown paper—a delicious cold sausage cake.” Irene Bradley Bennett attended the Pattersonville school in Dallas County and remembers that “in the fall we would have grapes, apples, pears or peaches. In winter, with the stove heating the room, the teacher would cook dry beans or make vegetable soup. What a treat!” Students sometimes found holes in their sacks where mice had nibbled. One Oregon County scholar recalled that his mother “always put a cup of gravy in my lunch bucket.” When it froze solid, he pretended it was ice cream and “watched the mouths of other students water.” Swapping food at lunchtime was as popular then as it is today. Most children walked to school. During soaking rains and freezing weather the roads and paths were almost impassable. A SECOND HOME 69 Droves of cattle, horses, buggies, and wagons made deep ruts in the roads. Walking in wet clay and mud in Missouri is often compared to walking in chewing gum. Mud stuck to the children ’s shoes, which grew heavier and heavier as more and more mud collected. Often in bad weather, children preferred going barefoot, carrying their shoes until they got to school. Teachers recalled seeing blood in the snow from children’s bare feet, and many kept a clean cloth and turpentine available to bandage cuts and treat stubbed toes. It was not uncommon for pairs of shoes to be shared in a family . This often left one or more members without shoes. According to The History of Rural Schools of Putnam County, Emanual...