THE MORNING SCHOOL.
Soon after the Indian war we moved to our donation claim. We had but three neighbors, the nearest nearly two miles away, and two of them kept bachelor's hall and were of no account for schools. Of course, we could not see any of our neighbors' houses, and could reach but one by a road and the others by a trail. Under such conditions we could not have a public school. I can best tell about our morning school by relating an incident that happened a few months after it was started.
One day one of our farther-off neighbors, who lived over four miles away, came to visit us. Naturally, the children flocked around him to hear his stories in Scotch brogue, and began to ply questions, to which he soon responded by asking other questions, one of which was when they expected to go to school.
"Why, we have school now," responded a chorus of voices. "We have school every day."
"And, pray, who is your teacher, and where is your schoolhouse?" came the prompt inquiry.
"Father teaches us at home every morning before breakfast. He hears the lessons then, but mother help us, too."
Peter Smith, the neighbor, never tires telling the story, and maybe has added a little as memory fails, for he is eighty-four years old now.
"Your father told me awhile ago that you had your breakfast at six o'clock. What time do you get up?"
"Why, father sets the clock for half-past four, and that gives us an hour while mother gets breakfast, you know."
You boys and girls who read this chapter may have a feeling almost akin to pity for those poor pioneer children who had to get up so early, but you may as well dismiss such thoughts from your minds, for they were happy and cheerful and healthy, worked some during the day, besides studying their lessons, but they went to bed earlier than some boys and girls do these days.