We also learn “how Mrs. Boulton brought a pale of lemonade and nuts, and we sang ‘We will all cling together like the ivy on the old garden wall,’ and we have done so except two Turncote blacklegs.” Not white Wyandottes, blacklegs.
Another budding Jim Mace perchance (for James hailed from “Swarfham where they do tree days’ trashin’ for norfun’”) informs us “that they had three or four policemen to gaurd the school, but (as he quaintly remarks) there was no need for them as we did not get to fighting.” Evidently a good job for the policemen that Jack did not tackle them.
Yes, I have had great joy of these essays. Amy informs us “how she brought her mouth organ and Violet brought her accordeon, and how those Barnardo girls told stories, for they had not been caned.” One feels quite young as one reads of “Ben Turner borrowing two planks to write upon, how schoolmistress, whom they term governess, would come and catch us not redein, an’ we would have to do a slate full of trancription”—whatever that may mean.
One may read, mark, and learn “how the boys sat on planks with their legs in the ditch,” and “how when it was sewing day, we sat on the copper in the coal-house, and when it raned we ranned into the cottage,” and “how we had our liteness tooken twice.”
But some of the essays are grand and reflect credit upon all concerned. To read them brings back youthful days.
A SCHOOL ON THE COMMON.
So the children were taught on the Common. They had their old teachers, who taught as a labour of love and without fee. They received in return a few eggs, a little milk, butter, cheese, in fact, anything which poor people share with each other, not forgetting Burston smiles.
However, trouble was a-brewing. The Law Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. The parents were summoned for not sending their children to school. On the 14th of May, 1914, thirty parents appeared before the magistrates at Diss, three miles away, to show cause whereby, inasmuch, as aforesaid, likewise hereinafter. Why not! Oh, Law! Lor! Perhaps you have had experience of engaging a lawyer to defend you from another lawyer?
The Burston Braves appeared before the Diss Solons for not sending their children to school.
I pause here to blame the children. Had the children been intelligent enough to choose rich parents they could have been taught in their own homes, including Windsor, Knowsley, Welbeck, or anywhere else. Rich parents have this slight advantage over Burston village bairns. Let this be a warning to the bairns.