School started the day after Labor Day for Berdina.

Most of the field work and gardening was done, the potatoes had been dug. Lydia and Berdina had to help pick them up. They lay stored in the root cellar.

The silo had been filled. Only a small amount of corn was standing; this would be husked out by hand later, if it didn’t freeze before it became ripe.

Berdina’s sister, Rose, had finished sewing clothes for the girls for school before returning to her teaching job.

Berdina had two new school dresses and some aprons. She always wore an apron to school over her dress. The apron had a front and back and buttoned together at the sides. They were made of cotton in a dark print, so as not to show the dirt so quickly. Aprons were much easier to wash, starch and iron than dresses.

Everyone got a new pair of school shoes. If it was warm they went barefoot to school.

The little white school house had only one big room. It had a small entry room and another small room for extra books, paste and chalk.

One teacher taught all eight grades. She was also the nurse and the janitor. She had to start the wood-burning heater first thing in the morning. The older boys brought in the wood from the wood shed and put it in the entryway.

The school bell rang at nine o’clock; at ten-thirty there was a fifteen minute recess, a chance to get a drink and use the little building out back of the school house. Berdina had an hour for lunch. She ran home for dinner, as school was only a short distance from her house. In the afternoon there was another fifteen minute recess and school was over at four o’clock.

Berdina liked school. Mrs. Carlton had a desk in front of the room. There was a long bench in front of her desk. When she was teaching a class, they went in front and sat on the bench. The rest of the pupils stayed in their seats and were supposed to be studying. There was blackboard in the front. A lot of work was done on the blackboard but the teacher didn’t turn her back for long. Some of the school desks were double and two people sat in a desk. There was an ink well in the center of the desks where the older pupils sat. Pupils who didn’t behave so well had to sit in single seats.

Berdina liked to swing on the swing set. The older pupils played on the giant slide. It had a metal pole in the center and chains hanging from it. At the end of each set of chains was a handle. One could hang onto the bar and run around the pole. If they ran fast, they would swing out and get a ride.

One day when it was raining, Berdina got wet coming back from lunch. The first grade reading class was right after lunch, so they all went to the bench in front. Mrs. Carlton asked Berdina to read. She took her little blue book, stood in front of the class and read, “This is the father, this is the mother, this is the boy, this is the girl.” As she read, Mrs. Carlton dried her hair with paper toweling and arranged her curls.

Berdina felt very uncomfortable and was glad when she was done reading so she could sit down.

After this, Lydia said, “Berdina is teacher’s pet.”

Berdina didn’t like this and she said, “I’ll get even with her somehow.”

One day when Lydia was sick and had to stay home from school, Berdina thought, now’s my chance.

In singing class everyone sang from the Golden Song Book of Favorite Songs. Mrs. Carlton played the piano. Some days she taught them new songs. When Berdina got home, she told Lydia they had learned a new song.

“What was it?” Lydia asked.

“In the Gloaming”, Berdina answered.

The next time they had singing class, Lydia asked, “Can we sing In the Gloaming?”

Mrs. Carlton said, “We haven’t learned that song yet, Lydia.”
Berdina thought this was funny until Lydia said, “Berdina told me you taught it to the class the day I was missing.”

Berdina’s face turned red and she didn’t lie again for awhile.

In Social Studies the lower classes were learning about Indians. Berdina liked this, as Ma had told her how some Indians had lived on their farm one summer. They had lived in the woods and would come to the farm and help. The squaws, as Ma called the women, helped care for Lydia who was the baby at the time. They also helped with the gardening. Ma gave them vegetables.

The men helped with the haying. One of the men was killed when he fell backwards from a load of hay in the barn and broke his neck. The Indians took his body back to the woods.

Every few days the Indians took water in a milk can Pa gave them. They dug a deep hole and buried the can to keep the water cool.

When the weather turned cool in the fall, the Indians left.

Later, when Pa cleared the land of trees and had the ground broken to use for crops, he left a small clump of trees standing where the Indians had camped. Pa left the spot, as he was certain the Indian had been buried there.

Berdina and Lydia and their cousins liked to play Indian in the trees in the field. They would take an old blanket with them and pretend they were Indians. They found some flintstones and a few other things the Indians had left behind them. This was really fun in the fall when it was Indian summer and the leaves were on the ground.

Teacher told the class to make something like the Indians used, maybe a corn cob doll, a little birch bark canoe or something out of leather. Berdina’s cousin, Vivian, made a doll by taking a corn cob and pasting corn silk on for hair, buttons for eyes and sewing a little skirt for her.

Berdina said to Lydia, “Let’s make a little canoe.”

They went into the woods in back of the barn to get some birch bark. They found some bark and peeled it off the tree. It was starting to get dark so they decided to start for home. Just then, they heard a noise that sounded like a growl. Perhaps it was a bear in the distance or some other small animal. They weren’t about to wait and find out. They ran as fast as they could go, through the barbed wire fence and through the pasture in back of the barn.

When they were almost home, Berdina said, “Look at my foot, it’s all blood.”

“Not just your foot, but the whole side of your leg,” replied Lydia.

Berdina had cut her leg as she climbed through the barbed wire fence. She was so frightened, she hadn’t felt it.

It was quite a gash, but Ma washed it with soap and water and put salve on it. It healed up but left a two inch scar on the inside of Berdina’s leg.

Soon it was Halloween. This meant a Halloween program with a Box Social afterwards.
Berdina was excited. Each day, some time was spent practicing for the program.

For the Box Social, each girl and woman was to bring a box lunch for two. The boxes were to be decorated and no one was to know who had brought the boxes.

Berdina and Lydia had decorated their boxes as well as they knew how and wondered who would buy them. Ma helped the girls pack their lunches. She didn’t feel like going herself.

At night the boxes were brought in a big bag to school and placed in the little room where the extra books were kept.

The school looked real spooky. A few of the lamps that hung along the sides of the
a” room were lit, their light flickered. These lamps were kerosene lamps which had a gold reflector in back of each one. Sometimes they had to be lit on dark rainy school days.

The school was packed with parents and other relatives.

After the program, the boxes were brought out of the small room and placed on a table.

The auctioneer began selling them. The bidding went highest on the pretty boxes. Berdina was glad when her cousin, Leo, bought her box, as she hated the thought of eating with an older man.

The teacher’s box always went for the most money. Somehow the men found out which one was hers.

It was alot of fun for the people and a good way to make money.

The money was used to buy cans of soup for hot lunch.

On the colder days the teacher would open several cans early in the morning, put them in a kettle and place the kettle on top of the big wood stove in the back of the school room. By noon the soup was good and hot. Everyone lined up with their bowls and was given a bowlful to eat with the cold sandwiches they had brought from home. After lunch they lined up again to wash and dry their bowl and spoon so it would be ready for the next day. In the coldest weather, Berdina and her sisters and brothers took their sandwich along too. They took it in a little metal pail that used to hold syrup.