USA > Vermont > Orange County > Bradford > Stories of old Bradford > Part 14
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Mr. Hiram Kimball, who had been put on the building committee to represent District No. 4, was most certainly grumpy and ready for a fight. He had not wanted to be on the committee at all. Moreover, he felt that District No. 4 was not being treated fairly.
Just before the last school meeting, District No. 4 had scurried to invite many new families to move into their area. They hoped in this way to have more votes for having the school built there. District No. 10, however, was by no means asleep ! They knew about the tricks that No. 4 was playing, and they fought back by persuading new families to move into No. 10 and vote for them.
All the neighborhood boys from six to twenty in both dis- tricts went to the last school meeting to see the fun. Captain 'Pep" Chamberlain, who had fought in the Civil War, was chairman of the meeting. Thin, wiry, and lively-his keen twinkling brown eyes taking in everything-he stroked his salt and pepper beard and rapped on his table for order.
The men-women didn't go to the meetings in those days -scuffed their heavy farm boots along the dusty floor of the little old school house in which they held their meeting. They grumbled threats to those sitting near them and then became silent. Two men, one from each district, whom the other people looked upon as their leader, did most of the talking. The rest were bashful about standing up on their feet and talking in a meeting. A hot fight followed with No. 10 winning by a small number of votes. The people of No. 4 went angrily home.
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District No. 10 went ahead and built the schoolhouse. The old school had sat near the main Goshen road near the intersection of a cross road, which led up through the woods past the old Grow place and the Woods place. The new one, a much larger one-room school, was built about a mile north. In later years when time had dulled the glare of its unpainted wood to a silver gray, it reminded one of Whittier's well- known poem :
"Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, A ragged beggar sleeping ; Around it still the sumachs grow And blackberry-vines are creeping."
You probably know the rest of this old poem. If not, you will enjoy reading it. And you may still see the fine new school house that the Goshen people at that time built sitting now among the bushes like a great useless brown toadstool. Not many people now living can remember when it was used as a schoolhouse.
Mrs. Albert Williams had given the land for it. The con- tract or right to build it had been given to Mr. Carl Fulton. Mr. Daniel Eastman had ordered lumber from the Hazen Brothers' sawmill. The sound of saws and hammers echoed through the neighborhood. The smell of fresh lumber was good when one rode past in his buggy.
The night before the schoolhouse was finished, angry threats from No. 4 made No. 10 afraid that someone might set fire to the new school during the night! So men were hired to guard it. Next morning Mr. Adams Wilson put the tower on it. Mr. Wilson had "gone sour" on District No. 10 and gone over to No. 4. As they watched him, more than one angry citizen from No. 4 threatened to pull the belfry down as soon as he had finished it! But, of course, they didn't !
When the building was completed, they stood about the grassy yard, citizens from 4 and 10, their horses tied to near- by trees. They paused on the way to town and sat in cramped buggies. While their horses ate grass beside the road, some of them got out and talked. They chewed tobacco and dug into the rich black wagon wheel ruts with the toes of their heavy farm boots as they argued, and grumbled, and criticized.
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They didn't smile; they glowered, but beneath the frowns on their work-lined, weatherbeaten, Vermont faces pleased ex- pressions kept breaking through. Their hearts beat with pride beneath their rough farm clothes-pride in the new school- house. They were going without things they had wanted for a long time to raise the money to build it.
"There's another fellow who's allays ben a leader before in District No. 10. Pears to me he's mighty luke-warm 'bout all this," a grumpy sandy-haired resident of No. 10 muttered, pointing toward Mr. Samuel Grow.
"Ayer!" his companion growled into his brown beard. "How come Sam's so blame neutral like. Acted all along like he didn't care which side won. Said the squabble was all a lot of 'Tomfoolery' !"
"Ayer! Seems like he's mighty friendly-like toward No. 4 all of a sudden. What'n tarnation ails him anyhow? He's allays been ready to help out in a good fight before. 'Fore the last school meeting', sez I to Sam, 'You're plumb wrong, way you look at this business, Sam. Other folks is thinkin' it's all- fired important. They're awaitin' fur someone to stand up an' tell 'em what to do. 'Pears to me you're the man to do that, Sam, in the meetin' tomorra.' Sez'e, 'Dunno's I care one way or t'other. They're makin' a heck of a rumpus over nawthin'-' Sez I, 'Sam, I don't see what's gut into you. You use to teach school yourself, an' you've allays took an interest in schools. You wuz allays one to fight fur your rights before!' Sez I, 'Pears to me-'"
"I kin tell you what's gut into Sam Grow so's he's like to let us down." interrupted a third man. He stopped to cut a piece of tobacco from his plug while his listeners waited. Then he pointed across the field bordering the further side of the school yard. "Look thar !"
They looked. They saw a dark-haired, dark-bearded boy hurrying across the field to the south west. He was not even glancing toward the new schoolhouse or the admiring crowd gathered about it.
"Who's that young fool?" asked the sandy-haired man. "I can't make out at this distance."
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"Oh, that?" replied the brown-bearded man. "Don't you see no resemblance to that roarin' lion, Hiram Kimball? That's Hiram's kid-Frank."
"Ayer. What's that gut to do with the way Sam Grow feels toward No. 4. I wanta know?"
"John, you're a bigger fool'n I took ye fur!" The third speaker cut another piece off the corner of his long brown plug before he continued. "Hiram's pup is running cross lots to see a girl." He winked. "That oldest Grow girl-Mary, that her name ?- turned out to be quite a nice, capable li'l woman all of a sudden ! Frank seems to think she's pretty nice."
Just then there was a commotion over by the schoolhouse steps.
Someone "shushed" the crowd. Dr. Jones1, on the school- house steps, cleared his throat for a speech.
Dr. Jones and the people from Bradford Village were sur- prised at the way the Goshen people felt about Dr. Jones' fine speech. He had generously offered to give the money to buy a bell for the belfry, providing that they would raise the money to have the new building painted. But evidently the Goshen people wanted to run their own affairs without any help or ad- vice from the people of Bradford village. The people from both 4 and 10 united to turn down this offer!
The crowd muttered to itself.
"Who wants the schoolhouse painted ? Good 'nuff as 'tis I reckon."
"Who's he think he is, coming up here from Bradford village and orderin' us to paint our schoolhouse ?"
"Let him tie his bell around his neck! Let him keep his money ! We don't want it !"
So the bell was politely refused in another speech by a resident of No. 10, and the school-house was never painted.
It took fifteen years for the people to pay for their new schoolhouse. Many people in No. 4 who had disagreed con-
1. Dr. Jones was the father of Edith Bruce Jones, well known Reader who later became Mrs. Charles Johnson.
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cerning its building refused to pay the school tax to raise money. Among those who refused to pay the school tax was Hiram Kimball. A man named Albert Williams who was "quite a business sort of a fellow" studied to get around this. Albert Williams knew as much about the law as any lawyer, some folks thought. He had bought and studied a book called "The Statutes of Vermont." He told the people that this book said that goods or property could be seized for payment of money, owed, and unless the goods were worth as much as $20 the person from whom the property was seized could do nothing about it.
So young Carroll Eastman was appointed tax collector and went into No. 4 to seize property, to make up for the un- paid tax. Carroll's little brother, Horace, went along to see the fun. The boys ran off with Mr. Kimball's sleigh and held it in District 10 until Mr. Kimball decided to cooperate and pay his tax to get his sleigh back.
GOING TO SCHOOL IN DISTRICT NO. 10
When he was 86 years old, Mr. Horace Eastman told of going to school in No. 10 as a little boy. Many of the teachers, according to the memories of various older persons, would seem to have been rather severe. Modern teachers would con- sider some of them needlessly cruel. Two of the best-liked teachers who came to teach in the new schoolhouse were Leona Osgood and Leona Worthen. Miss Osgood was tall, slender, and graceful, with dark hair and blue eyes. She was a welcome change from the man teacher whom some of the children remembered painfully as a tyrant who had stood in the hall as they marched in and twisted the ears of the boys to whom he had taken a dislike.
Next year Leona Worthen came to teach. The children enjoyed having her with them. She was plump and dark- haired and enjoyed a good joke.
Could today's boy or girl have peeped in at the high win- dow of the new schoolhouse, he would have been surprised to have seen in the same room, sometimes in the same class, boys and girls, particularly boys, ranging in ages from six to twenty-three! They sat about the stove on hard benches or in long double-desked seats facing the Master's platform. A per- son might have chanced to look in just as little Horace East- man, with his round, roguish face and merry, dancing blue eyes, stood at the front of the room on the teacher's platform to recite from memory the long old "Vermont Rule for Reckoning Interest" which was used in business at that time. Little Horace learned to recite this rule easily before some of the twenty-year-old boys had finished learning it. You recited things back to the teacher like a parrot in those days. If you weren't a good parrot, you were lucky if you only had your fingers rapped sharply or stayed after school, for much worse punishments were often used.
Plump, jolly Miss Worthen left at the end of a term to be married. Other less agreeable teachers followed. Frank Grow took a dislike to one of these teachers and pretended to be foolish. In those days it was considered a crime for a child to even move in his seat, and it was unheard of for a pupil to
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leave his seat without permission, or to speak without raising his hand. Frank Grow would bolt to the window and pointing foolishly ask, "Who that?" This always set his schoolmates to laughing. It particularly amused little six-year-old Harry Grow and little six-year-old Ned Fulton who were almost lost in the big double front seat, their short legs dangling uncom- fortably above the floor. The teacher had been there several weeks before she discovered that Frank Grow was not foolish, but that she herself had been made a fool of.
In those days there were no interesting first readers with bright pictures for little beginners. The little tots learned to read from almost any old book after they had memorized their letters. They had no crayons, workbooks, paper, pencils, or in- teresting seatwork. As soon as they could add, they added endless sums on their slates or on bits of paper and were pun- ished when the answers wouldn't come right or when clumsy little hands accidentally dropped and broke a slate. There were long, weary hours, while the older pupils were reciting back to "Teacher" the lessons they had memorized, that little muscles twitched and babyish eyes looked longingly at the blue sky and the treetops through the high windows. Then they were punished for wriggling.
One teacher sent two of these little fellows day after day into the corners of the room to stand, sometimes for three or four hours at a stretch. Their little legs ached. It was difficult to keep from crying, yet they dared not stir from their positions ever so slightly lest "Teacher's" hard ruler crack down about their heads.
After a week or two of this punishment, the two little boys were beginning their long walk home one night when they were hailed by Horace Eastman. They waited until the older boy had caught up with them. They were not afraid for Horace had a pleasant voice and a kind face. He had often taken their part against older, rougher boys on the school playground.
As they walked down the narrow, dusty, bush-lined road together, the older boy said, "I have a plan. I think, if you will agree to follow it for a week or for several days. Miss R. will stop punishing you. Will you trust me enough to do ex- actly as I say ?"
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"Oh, yes, Horace !" the little boys agreed gratefully, when their companion told them of his plan.
Next morning Miss R. was quite astonished when, be- fore school had hardly begun, one of the little fellows raised his chubby hand eagerly, "Please, Ma'm, may I go stand in the corner ?"
"Why, yes," answered the startled teacher.
When the other little boy asked in the same eager tone for permission to stand in the other corner, she was still more mystified.
That night the little boys waited happily for their friend, Horace. "Did we do all right?" they asked.
"Indeed you did," laughed the older boy. "Now do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and the next- until I tell you to stop. Endure your punishment bravely for a little longer, and I promise you that it will soon stop." he added kindly.
"Oh, we will, Horace! We will!" chorused the little boys. Somehow they didn't mind the ache in their legs and backs so much now that they knew they had an older friend who was trying to help them.
So day after day the little boys begged eagerly for the teacher's punishment, while the older boys and girls tittered more and more at the bewildered teacher.
Finally the teacher could stand their laughing no longer. In some way that she could not understand, the tables had been turned. The little boys were no longer being punished, but she was being punished by the ridicule of the older chil- dren. Next morning when the little boys asked brightly for per- mission to stand in their corners, she replied crossly, "No, you may not! And don't ask me again."
At another time, Horace himself was punished. In front of him sat a dark haired boy who, either because of lack of money or from laziness, often neglected to get his hair cut. Horace was fond of braiding this boy's hair into many little braids like those of a pickaninny. This particular day he had filled his pockets with many pieces of bright colored string
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which he tied into gay bows, one at the end of each braid. Across the room sat a girl who liked to send notes to Horace. She had just sent a note on its way. As the note was being passed to him, young Eastman saw the teacher coming down the aisle toward him. He did not want "Teacher" to read his letter and make biting remarks about it, so he quickly crum- pled and rolled the note into a small tight, hard ball without stopping to read it first. As the teacher reached for the note, she caught sight of the many little braids with their gay bows. So this was what the children were laughing at! For punish- ment she ordered the boy with the braids into the hall and young Eastman to the front of the room. Each was told to sit on the floor and place his feet up on a high settee. After an hour of this backbreaking punishment, the Eastman boy de- cided that he had had enough, so he pretended to lose his bal- ance and rolled onto his back. He was a good actor; and the teacher, believing that he had lost his balance, did not continue the punishment, particularly since the other boys and girls were much amused by the spectacle of Horace rolling upon the floor.
Horace liked to go to school. He liked to study. When the teacher was fair about things, Horace studied very hard so that he grew up to be a successful man and one who was much liked by all the people who knew him.
MR. CLARK SPINS SOME YARNS
A group of young men were walking down the dimly- lighted Bradford Street. Among them was "Gene" Sleeper, "Ed" Munn, "Ed" Meigs, and George Jenkins. They were approaching the Square.
"Let's go over to A. T.'s and get him going," suggested one youth, his eyes sparkling with anticipation.
"Sure, let's !" agreed the others, eager for fun.
"I only wish I could think up a bigger whopper than A. T. can," one young man said wistfully.
"You'll have to go some to beat A. T.'s yarns !" re- plied one of his companions. "All day long I've been trying to think up one."
"Oh, A. T. would always come back with a bigger one, no matter what you thought up."
"A. T. Clark-Drugs" produly labeled in raised gold letters, this store was, in the 1890's, in a large wooden build- ing that stood where the ten cent store is now. In the early 1900s first a hardware store and then a meat market took the place of the drugstore.
The young people scuffed the snow from their feet and stamped into the warm, dingy interior. There was no soda fountain for young people to gather at after school or work, and the tiers of shelves over-crowded with bottles and jars gave off a slightly antiseptic or disinfectant odor, for the entire stock of the store was composed of nothing much but drugs and medicines. A big wood-burning box stove toward the back of the room roared happily, and several older men lounging on benches or settees basked in its warmth. The nineteen and twenty-year-olds proudly joined this select adult group.
A. T. Clark turned laughingly to welcome them. Perhaps that was one of the attractions that he held for youth, the fact that he was always laughing. Perhaps, too, some of the young men about town enjoyed the occasional glimpse that close as-
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sociation with him gave them of his pretty, plump, rosy- cheeked daughter, Miss Maude. She was one of the prettiest girls in all Bradford. She was smart, too,-quite a musician. Whenever you approached the vicinity of A. T.'s house, you would hear the tinkle of a piano, and she could play the church organ better than anyone else in town.
"Sit down, boys, and make yourselves at home," Mr. Clark beamed cordially. "Cold night out, isn't it?"
The young fellows removed their gloves and blew steam onto their red hands. Young George carefully wiped his glasses and then sat nervously twirling one end of his sleek dark mous- tache. Ed slicked down his hair and carefully combed his mous- tache before A. T.'s cracked little mirror. Just then a good- looking, smoothly-dressed young man entered breezily, swing- ing a cane. He made a purchase and stayed to listen. The other young men called him "Charles".
When the young men were all comfortably seated and A. T. had limped back to his own chair, he stroked his long black beard and continued, "Why it was so cold this morning the pump was frozen, I had to use a boiling teakettle to thaw it out. And, would you believe it? When I went to pour out that hot water, it froze into a big, solid icicle on the end of the snout. Well, sir, I took hold of that icicle to pull it off so I could get some water, and what do you know? That icicle had frozen so fast that it was hot. It burned my finger !" He held up a red, doctored finger as proof.
The talk' drifted back now to the telescopes that the older men had been discussing when the young men entered. And now the young men added information they had gleaned from reading about or seeing various telescopes. Each new speaker described a bigger and more powerful one, until it was A. T.'s turn.
"Of course, I have very keen eyesight," admitted the drug- gist, "but I have just an ordinary looking telescope at home that is so powerful that it will bring a mountain right up onto my back porch! Why, when I look at Moosilauke through it I can actually count the clapboards on the Lookout House !"
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.Mu li.id AViAidu
A
The East Side of the Square. (Except for Mr. Barton's improvements it looked about the same until the first of 1947.)
STORIES OF
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No one except a young neighbor of A. T.'s dared dispute this amazing piece of news. They well knew from past expe- rience how angry it seemed to make A. T. to have his stories questioned or doubted. "He really seems to believe his own yarns !" young Ed had remarked once.
"Why, but, Mr. Clark, you couldn't see them there clap- boards on that Lookout House !" the slow-witted Caleb ob- jected. There aren't any clapboards on the Lookout House. It's built of stone."
Caleb's tactless speech was followed by a horrible si- lence. There was a tingle of excitement in the air. As every- one watched the smile fade from A. T.'s face, he drew himself up to his full height. "If you doubt my word, Caleb," he said icily, "I suggest that you come over tomorrow morning and see for yourself."
"Danged if I'll go over there and let him think I believe his whopping yarn," thought Caleb, as he walked up the snowy street alone.
Caleb usually walked home alone. He had started school with the other fellows in the little primary school next to the Methodist church, but he had not graduated from the old white academy as the others did. They were polite enough to him, but he felt that he was. not one of this select group who went about together, sang in the church choir, sang for funer- als and parties, wore nice clothes, and held down better jobs than Caleb could ever hope to have. So, although he liked to be on hand to hear A. T.'s stories and to pick up a few extra pennies running errands for him now and then, he usually pre- ferred to walk home alone, thinking his own thoughts.
"But, by gorry, I could go over and borrow one of his tools," thought Caleb, as he neared home. "Let's see, I got most of his tools over to my house now, what with checking up on his crazy yarns, but I guess I hain't borrowed his monkey wrench yet-"
"Umhum," said A. T. absently, when Caleb made his ap- pearance bright and early next morning, "Thought you would be needing a monkey wrench soon. You'll find it in on the tool bench." He put the telescope back to his eyes. "Let's see, where was I? Ten, 'leven, twelve-"
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"What you countin'?" Caleb demanded, beside himself with curiosity.
"Huh? Why just what I said, Caleb. Counting clapboards. Thirteen, fourteen-Got that mountain right here now on the porch. Fifteen, sixteen .-
"But, Mr. Clark," Caleb exploded. "You couldn't possibly count those clapboards, for simple reason they ain't none ! I been up there my self. Bunch of us fellows clim' Moose-see'- lock. I seen that there Lookout House with my own eyes. It's made of stun."
"Would you care to take a look at the clapboards your- self ?" A. T. asked loftily.
Caleb seized the glass eagerly. After a moment he said disappointedly, "I can't see nawthin' but a black speck on top the mountain."
"That," replied A. T. scornfully, "is because your eye- sight is so poor. I have very keen eyesight."
Which man was right can not now be proved from actual observation as that Lookout House burned some years ago.
There was another story told about A. T.'s remarkable eyesight. One time a Mr. Pillsbury was calling on A. T. Clark. Mr. Clark had, as usual, been boasting about his keen eye- sight.
As the two friends stood on the back porch admiring the view that warm summer day, A. T. suddenly remarked, "I can see a fly on the steeple of the Piermont house !"
A. T. Clark's house was the one in which Mrs. Arthur Hale now lives, but at that time it was a small, shabby, dark- green house.
"You could not possibly see a fly on the steeple of the Piermont meeting house," argued Mr. Pillsbury, gazing to- ward Piermont.
"I most certainly can !" declared A. T.
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"Wait a minute. Be quiet !" commanded Mr. Pillsbury. "Yessir, I guess you're right. There is a fly on the steeple of the Piermont meeting house! I can hear him buzz."
A. T. liked to tell another story about his boyhood.
"We had been butchering pigs," he said. "One cold win- ter's day my father started a fire under the brick arch and put on the big kettle filled with water.
" 'Get that water hot and keep it boiling,' he told me, 'so it will be ready to scald the pigs when I return. And I mean boiling !'
"For hours I put on dry wood and kept that fire roaring, but still the water did not seem to boil," recalled A. T. "By the time my dad had returned, a thick coating of ice had formed over the top of the kettle!
" 'Thought I told you to keep this fire ablazing, Son!' my father scolded. 'You been asleep?'
"Dad, I've been tending this fire every minute. I'm sure that water must be boiling, even if it doesn't look it. It's be- cause it's such a cold day that the water freezes as fast as I can make it boil."
"My father took his ax and chopped a hole in the ice. I thrust in my hand. 'Ouch'! My hand came out red and raw! That water certainly was boiling !"
1 Lieutenant Eugene Sleeper graduated from West Point, now re- tired from the United States Army.
2 Caleb-a fictitious character.
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