Needless to say, that was another time I didn't ask for permission to leave the building. I backed out the door, hurried down the stairway and ran, trying not to turn my back on anyone all the way home.
While I was a Freshman in high school, one of my jobs at home was to hitch up a team of horses each day after school, drive seven miles to the Neinda gin, load a wagon with cottonseed, drive back home and leave it for Papa to unload the next day. But then one day I didn't make my regular trip.
In school that afternoon our teacher was called from the room for a long-distance phone call. She was gone a long time, and the longer she stayed away the worse things got in our room. Long before she returned kids were throwing erasers, throwing books, running around the room, fighting, and even running out one door, down the hall, and back into the room through another door.
When the teacher returned, she caught them in the act. I say "them" because I made it a point not to do anything contrary to rules. I had special privileges I didn't want to lose. I wanted to be trusted. As a matter of fact, there were two of us who did nothing wrong—Mable Hudson and I. But the teacher didn't know that. She told us she was ashamed of everyone of us. And she kept us all in an hour after school.
That was the cause of my missing my Neinda trip and that was why Papa was not at all happy. In fact he was very unhappy. He asked why I was late. I told him I had to stay in. He asked what I had done to have to stay in. I told him, "Nothing."
He was sure I was lying, because, he said, "Teachers don't keep kids in for nothing." Then he added, "I thought I had at least one boy I could trust to behave and tell the truth."
It was too late to haul cottonseed that day. I felt I had let the family down, but through no fault of my own. Or maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have explained to the teacher, but I didn't. Nor did I explain further to Papa. He didn't seem to be in the mood for further talk from me.
My teachers knew me pretty well. A little explaining might have done the trick. They knew I had never lied to them. On the other hand, if I had explained to the teacher, and if she had not kept me in, I would have been called "teacher's pet" and she might have wound up being hated by my classmates. I found myself in an awkward situation where I didn't know what to do nor what to say. So I kept quiet and found myself being punished by the ones who meant the most to me, my teacher and my father.
Did I turn against them because they told me they were ashamed of me? Certainly not. I understood how it looked to them. They didn't ask any further questions, and I offered no further explanation. They still trusted me and I trusted them. And I didn't lose any of my special privileges at home or at school.
Throughout my school years, the first day of April was a special day for school kids. The afternoon of April Fools' Day was a period for students to have a good time. If the teachers would not allow a fun-party that afternoon, some of the pupils, if not all of them, would run away from school. This was customary, and if most of the kids ran away, it was generally understood that there would be little or no punishment.