The School Teacher

Another person I knew back then was Lovie Pauline, a teacher at our school. She hated the "Lovie" part, so when we wanted to make her mad, we would call her "Miss Lovie." She was a good teacher and a swell person. I spent a lot of time with her later, but she was very tense and nervous.

Sometimes she would get so upset that she would lie down on the front bench and cry and kick her heels, saying the school kids were driving her crazy. All of this took place during classtime. She was in charge of about forty kids in one room, primer through eighth grade. The kids sort of got shook up by this behavior, and they would quieten down for a few days after an episode.

Pauline boarded with my grandma through the week, and she would go home on weekends. She spent many nights with us, and I went home with her also. But we loved to tease her. I do not know why our parents let us by with it, for she was highly nervous and cried many times. We thought that it was funny. We should have gotten our bottoms busted.

I remember how some kids walked four or five miles to school. On winter days they got so cold. When they came in, they sat by the big woodstove in the middle of the room. As they began to warm up, they would hurt badly from nearly frozen hands and feet.

The teacher and the other kids would rub their feet and wrap them in wool caps. The teacher would always put the children's hands in cold water and then into their hair. This eased the pain by warming slowly. I was always glad to live close to the school house.