COUNTRY SCHOOL-HOUSES.
To the Children:
I know you have heard much about the colored people, but did you ever hear about their country school-houses? Let me tell you of two in Alabama.
Sunday-schools as well as day-schools are held in these same buildings. One Sunday, a minister who was going twelve miles out into the country to visit one of these schools, invited me to go with him. After inquiring many times where the school was, and going half a mile out of our way, we at last spied, at the right of the road, some saddled mules hitched to trees. We thought that might be the place, and sure enough there, right in the woods, was a nice new school-house.
After fastening our horse to a sweet-gum tree, we entered the little unpainted building. The superintendent gave us seats at the head of the school—not armchairs, but simply a board two feet from the floor, answering for a bench. As soon as we were seated I began to look about me to see what kind of a place I was in, while the minister addressed the school. The house was built of pine logs, placed an inch apart, consequently there were great cracks on all sides of the room, which in summer must have been pleasant, as they let in air, but in winter, think how cold they would be. The house was full of old men, women and children, sitting on rude benches.
As I looked through the crack near me, I saw outside a row of men seated on a log, who left their places when they heard a stranger’s voice inside and crowded into the house. I saw them put their hats up on a beam over their heads. Those who couldn’t find room inside looked through the cracks. There was no window, only a square hole cut over the door to let in light. Seeing the many cracks in the roof, we asked, when we came out, if it never rained in upon them. “Not much,” was the answer. You see these people don’t mind a bit of a sprinkle now and then.
After the minister had finished telling them how he had been in the very same land where Jesus had lived, the school sung, “We’re going home to-morrow.” I wish you could have heard those children. They sang at the top of their voices, their white teeth showing more than ever in contrast with their black skin. After the superintendent gave out the papers which we had brought, the exercises closed, and I was glad to be relieved of the sixty pairs of eyes which had been upon me.
Another time I went with some teachers to a Mission Sunday-school. This was in a most lovely place, right in the thick woods, far away from any houses or sounds of any kind, except the songs of the birds. We found we were early that day, for neither the teacher nor scholars had come. We went inside the school-house and waited.
Perhaps you ask how we got in. That was an easy thing to do, for there was no locked door to keep us out, and no door of any kind, only an opening in one side of the house. This was an old building, built in the same way as the first one I visited. In some places the logs were a foot apart. Here the benches were made of round logs split in two, the flat part being the top, and in each end of the rounded part were two legs. And such queer looking seats as they were! Only one or two of them had backs. Before long the teacher and a few scholars came. The school was small that day, as there was a “big baptizing,” as they call it, not far away, which always attracts crowds of colored people.
After the scholars had left, and as we were preparing to go, a terrible thunder shower came up which detained us there. The rain came in, drip, drip, at every crack, till after a while there was only one dry corner in the house. The teacher told us that when showers came in school time, the scholars had to sit on their books to keep them dry. The shower continued for some time, and being very tired, after a sixteen-mile drive over new-cut roads through woods, we put on our water-proofs and lay down on the damp benches; but finding the drops were falling into our faces, we were obliged to put up umbrellas. This was resting under difficulties. There, in that open building, far away from any one, with the rain coming in and standing in pools on the floor, we fully realized what these poor country people have to go through to learn their A, B, C; and those who continue their schools in the winter must suffer greatly from the cold, as they only have a fire-place in one end of the room. One teacher told us that his fire-place was so poor, that in winter he built a fire out of doors, while the children gathered around it sitting on stumps and logs. There are not only these two schools I have spoken of, but many such scattered all over the Southern States.
Now, since I have been writing this, I have thought what a nice plan it would be for you boys and girls to save some of your pennies, and perhaps before long one of you would have enough to buy a small, plain black-board, and another enough to buy a box of crayons, or a pretty motto for one of these old bare school-rooms. If you couldn’t send the things, you could send the money for them; and how delighted any teacher would be with a few such comforts! What do you think of my plan?—L. P. H.