“It was this-a-way. W. J. Bryan, 15; Andrew Jackson, 12; Jeff Davis, 9; Abraham Lincoln, 8; Thomas Jefferson, 8; Moses, 6; Abraham, 15; John the Baptist, 3; Daniel Boone, 2; William McKinley, 1.”
“What about George Washington, Speed?”
“Well, I guess they musta fergot him.”
And, once more now, not every family in Indiana or elsewhere is strong for education, and especially in the country. So once upon a time there was a family—father and mother, that is—that got into a row over this very thing. An old couple had married after each had been married before and each had had children. Only, now, each of ’em only had one son apiece left, that is, home with ’em. The old man believed in education and wanted his boy educated, whereas the woman didn’t. “No, siree,” she said, “I don’t want any of my children to ever git any of that book learnin'. None o' the others had any and I ’low as Luke can git along just as well as they did.”
But the old man he didn’t feel quite right about it and somehow his boy liked books. So, since he was really the stronger of the two, he sent the two boys off and made ’em go. The old woman grieved and grieved. She felt as though her boy was being spoiled, and she said so.
FACTORYVILLE BIDS US FAREWELL
“Shucks!” said the old man, “he’ll git along all right. What’s the matter with you, anyhow? If my boy don’t go to school he’ll feel bad, and if I send him to school and keep yours at home to work the neighbors will talk—now I just can’t manage it, that’s all.”
So the two boys kept on going for awhile longer. Only the old woman kept feelin' worse and worse about it. All at once one day she got to feelin' so terrible bad that she just gathered up her boy’s clothes and took him over to his grandfather’s to live, and gee! the old grandfather was sore about it. Say!
“Send that boy to school!” he says. “Never! Why, he ain’t the same boy any more at all already. I’ll be hanged if he ain’t even fergot how to cuss,” and he wouldn’t even let the boy’s fosterfather come near him. Not a bit of it, no siree.