The Ruby Chronicles (#2)

Editor Note:  The Ruby Chronicles essays come to me courtesy of Sid Stivland. 

Our Country Schoolhouse

The one-room school with high bell tower and tall flag pole stood on one acre of land. The hall and class room looked bleak with its gray ceiling, walls, and floor.  We were fascinated by what was on the walls – the colorful pictures, pupils handiwork, the clock with the swinging pendulum, maps on rollers, kerosene lamp on a bracket, pencil sharpener, a large picture of George Washington, the long chart of the alphabet, and the glass framed Gettysburg address.

How fun to share a double seat and desk carved with initials with my twin sister or a friend. We often huddled close to the black jacketed coal stove on the coldest days and soon there was the smell of hot rubber and leather.

Although the supply of paper and library books in the big book case was limited, our kind teacher gave us a good beginning.

All the boys and girls waited for the school noon hour.  We wanted to skate on the glassy ice on a pond nearby.

We gulped our cold meat sandwiches and a cookie.

With our teacher’s permission, we quickly ran across the field to the pond.  The cold southeast wind nipped the nose and fingers.

We were happy to find a log by the edge of the pond.  We sat on it as we took off our four-buckle overshoes and put on our skates.  These clamped to our shoes.

For awhile we all skated around the edge of the pond.  Soon, my twin sister, a better and faster skater than I, skated toward the middle.  Suddenly, the ice gave way and she plunged into the cold icy water up to her waist.  She floundered around in the water.  The boys and girls yelled.  Then we all froze.  There wasn’t even a long stick we could push out to her.  Somehow she managed to grasp onto the broken edge of ice and climbed out of the water.  The bell was ringing so off went the skates and we all dashed back to the schoolhouse.

The teacher, soberly and quietly, told my sister she would have to remove her shoes and socks and sit by the stove.  The stove was in the back part of the room.

My sister, embarrassed and uncomfortable in her one-piece long underwear and woolen dress, sat there the rest of the afternoon.  Some of the boys snickered when they smelled the drying shoe leather.

No one scolded my sister for everyone was happy she didn’t drown.

Ruby Johnson Anderson