Lemonade was a thing rarely seen in those parts, a treat indeed, so it was served as the final reward, not from a punch bowl, as it is served in most places, but from the most available thing to be found on Tabor Hill—a lard can. As they passed in line around the receptacle to be served, an old man rose in the back part of the house and said in a loud voice, “Things certainly have changed in this district. It used to be that you couldn’t hold meeting or Sunday school in this house without the boys shooting through the windows. It used to be moonshine and bullets; but now it’s lemonade and Bibles.”
Some teachers found obstacles in their way, such as the prolonged absence of the illiterates from home, but they watched for their return, and even if they came back and tarried but a short time, they put them for the moment to the book and pen. One teacher said to me, “I have a father and three grown sons in my district who are employed twelve miles from home and are only at home on the Sabbath day. Do you think there would be any harm in my going over there on Sunday and teaching them to read and write?” Remembering those words of the Master when he was asked in regard to healing the withered hand of a man on the Sabbath day—and certainly these were withered hands—and His answer, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day?” I said, “It is a holy day and I think it would be a holy deed.” The young man went Sunday after Sunday and taught the father and sons to read and write.
There are masterpieces of art that one would travel many miles to see, but to me there is no picture more beautiful than the one my imagination conjures up of that young teacher, with those four grown men grouped about him learning to read and write on the Sabbath day.
We tried by every means, to wipe illiteracy out of the county to the last individual. Every one was offered the opportunity and some were offered it repeatedly. The overwhelming majority accepted it with joy and gratitude—a few had to be coaxed. Some few, in their ignorance had a misconception of our motives and stubbornly refused to learn.
When the campaign closed, of the 1,152 illiterates in the county, only 23 were left, and these were classified; six were blind or had defective sight; five were invalids languishing on beds of pain; six were imbeciles and epileptics, two had moved in as the session closed and four could not be induced to learn.
One of the teachers who had taught fifty-six people in her own and other districts to read and write, went into the home of one of these stubborn four after the campaign closed and paid her an exorbitant price for board. She induced this old woman to teach her to knit, and one day when they were sitting and knitting together and had become fast and familiar friends and the time was ripe, she said to her, “Now you’ve taught me something valuable, something, in fact, that I’ve always wanted to know. I’m going to return the favor, I’m going to teach you to read and write, so that you can write to your son in Washington, and the one in Indiana and the one in Illinois. I know how glad they’ll be to have letters from their mother’s own hand, and how glad you’ll be to read letters from them.”
While she was speaking, she was placing the material in the old woman’s hands, and, almost before she knew it she was copying “E” the first letter in her name.
One morning shortly afterward, that little teacher knocked at my door; I opened and she entered. Without a word, but with shining eyes, she laid that old woman’s first letter on my desk.