THE DISTANT SCHOOL

S chool was always fun for me. It meant companions, games to play, the smile of approval of a teacher when something was done well, and the chance to compete in the class with other boys and girls. In the reading class, in particular, there were interesting stories, and I liked to read. In my home there were very few books, and some— such as Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Army Boys on the Firing Line— I had already read more than once.

We lived about five and one half miles from the school, farther than anyone else in the township, but I really did not mind the distance or the time it took to travel back and forth. In the first years of school I went in a bus drawn by two horses that came every morning and brought us back every evening. In the winter this meant that it was dark when we left and dark when we came back, but in the spring and autumn it was just the opposite.

In the spring and fall the "bus" had four wheels, but in the winter it was put on a sled. In the center of the bus there was a stove with a pipe that stuck out of the top of the bus. In the winter the driver made a fire in it to keep the children warm, and when he did there was always competition to see who could be closest to the stove.

In the spring, when the weather was warm and the grass had begun to grow, other boys and I often took turns running behind the bus, usually holding one hand onto the side of it. Sometimes, to show how brave we were if the girls were looking, we would even walk or run a little ways behind the bus. And when we did this the driver sometimes made the horses run faster to try to leave us in the dust. If he did this we had to run very hard to catch up. Once in a while a boy didn't catch up until he was nearly exhausted, and the driver had again slowed the horses to a walk. When this happened the driver and the other children would laugh and jeer. But the next day there were always boys ready to try again.

Later, when I was old enough to drive a car, I became the "bus" driver for myself and my younger brother Art, and for a short time for a few other children as well, using our family's old Model-T Ford. I really liked this arrangement better; it did not take so much time, and it was fun to drive the old car. Also, I could then stay a few minutes after school to steal a kiss or two or more in the cloak room from a young girl who met me there.

But in the winter I still had to drive the old horse-drawn sleigh, and the one I drove did not have a stove in it. That was fine on warm days but when it was cold it was difficult to keep our feet warm. Often we covered our feet with the hay we carried along every day to feed the horses during the noon lunch period. But there were times when even the hay was not warm enough, particularly when it was forty below zero and more. Then we would get out of the bus and walk behind, beating our hands on our shoulder blades to keep them warm by forcing the blood out to the finger tips. On such days the horses, who stayed on the path even when I was not holding the reins, would turn white from the frost on their hair, and long icicles would form and hang from each nostril. Their breath made a cloud of steam in the cold air. When there was no snow, but the roads were too muddy for the Model-T, we rode horseback. Then my brother Art would ride the pony and I had to use one of the work horses. The work horses were very tall and also very broad, and they were difficult to stay on without a saddle, which we did not have for them. Moreover, they began to sweat before we arrived at the school, which meant that salt water soaked through my pants. The pants dried in the course of the day, but they became very stiff, and in the spring, to make matters worse, they were always covered with hair that the horses shed at that time of the year. That was one reason it was important to curry and brush the horses.

One day, while in primary school, I asked permission to go to the toilet, but I was refused by the teacher, who told me I must wait until recess. I did not know that it was only a few minutes away. At the time I was standing at the black board doing a problem in arithmetic. Hard as I tried to wait until the bell sounded, I soon felt a warm liquid moving down my leg and into one shoe until it overflowed and ran out on the floor where it formed a puddle. My pants leg, including the heavy winter underwear that I wore to keep warm in the winter, was soaked, and my face turned the color of a red apple. I was so embarrassed that I didn't go out to play during the recess period, and instead I sat at my desk for the rest of the day, trying to pretend that I was reading or doing my school work. It was not until I returned home in the late afternoon that I was finally dry again.

My mother could tell that something had gone wrong. When I told her what had happened, she gave me clean underwear and pants to wear the next day, even though it was not yet Saturday night, the day each week when everyone in the family normally changed their dirty clothes for clean ones.

On another occasion I was the amused spectator rather than the victim of embarassment. A high school girl, who drove to school each day by herself with a horse and buggy, had brought with her an overnight bag that contained her night gown and other garments because she had planned to spend the night with a friend. She had left her bag in the buggy while she was in school. During the noon recess the "big boys," as we called them, decided they would lift the buggy to the top of the barn so that it could be seen from the school room windows. In the process they discovered the bag, opened it and saw the night gown. One of the boys put it on and proceeded to do a dance on the top of the barn in full view of the girl to whom it belonged and of the other children looking out of the windows. The girl burst into tears and hid her face in embarrassment. The other children, myself included, thought it was all very funny and laughed uproariously, which of course is what the big boys wanted.

During my first years in school most farm families had many children, usually from six to ten. One family had seventeen. There were eight in our family.

Not all mothers were so insistent on cleanliness for their children as ours. In our family all clothing had to be changed every Saturday night, and a bath in a metal wash tub in front of the kitchen stove at least once a month was the rule in the winter. We had no running water. In the summer baths were taken more frequently, also in the metal tub, except when we were permitted to swim in the river or in a pond. The tub was only large enough to hold one person standing up, unless it was a very small child. Because water was never plentiful, every member of the family bathed in the same tub of water. As the parents and older children came first, and I was number seven in the family, the water was rather dark and soapy by the time I got into it.

One winter bath made a particularly deep impression on me. I had moved the tub close to the stove because the air seemed so cold when I washed. While washing myself in a standing position I dropped the soap onto the kitchen floor, and when I bent over to pick it up, I bumped into the stove. A red burn mark on my posterior was the result. Mother was not sympathetic. She simply suggested I keep the tub a little farther from the stove when the time for the next bath came around.

In one large family in our community the children could be recognized from a distance by the odors that surrounded them. There were even times when one of the boys, my best playmate for many years, would develop deep cracks on his knuckles from not washing his hands properly. I often overheard adults joke that the members of this particular family bathed once a year "whether they needed it or not." Another version of the joke said that the children had their winter underwear sewed onto their bodies in the fall and that it was never taken off until the following spring, when it was cut off.

Baldwin Consolidated School
(It had already been closed several years
when this picture was taken in July 1958).
This is where I went to school, from primary
through high school, 1920 through 1933.

AN UNWILLING PERFORMER

B eing in plays in school was always fun for me. Because there not many children during most of my school years, nearly everyone with any interest or ability had an opportunity to participate in some form of activity. For five years in a row I was the Santa Claus who distributed to the children the gifts that had been placed under the school Christmas tree. To make me look fat I always had to have one or two pillows under my Santa uniform.

One kind of performing I did not enjoy, however, was the kind that was forced on me. During my early school years the high school boys were quite rowdy. Many attended school only to play basketball (they were very adept, and one year our school won the state championship), and they had very little interest in their classes. One activity that some loved was to "pick" on the smaller boys. Many times I was waylaid and frightened on the way to the toilet (which was in the basement), to the point where I hesitated to go even when the need was great. On another occasion they smashed my lunch bucket. Even though it was only a half gallon syrup can, to me it was very important.

For a few years I wore a sheepskin coat to school in the winter. The front of it had cord loops going from one side to the metal buttons on the other. One day one of the older boys went into the cloakroom which each class room had in the back, and very quietly, without being seen, cut all of the cords. That way I could not button my coat when going home that afternoon.

On another occasion, when we were eating our lunch in the gymnasium (which was in the basement), standing and talking, one of the older boys, who was very strong, put one foot in front of both my feet and his right hand on the back of my neck. I was holding parts of my lunch in each hand. He gave me a very hard push that caused me to fall head forward to the floor, and I hit my forehead with full force. A very large bump appeared that did not go away for hours. In fact, it never did entirely disappear, for I can still feel it.

One day while on the way to the toilet during class, I was stopped by one of the larger boys and forced to go with him into the gymnasium. There he made me stand against the wood wall while he threw his open jack knife toward me in such a way that it stuck in the wall near my body.

Another time, during the noon hour, when there were no teachers in the building, several of the high school boys took me and a classmate to a second story room. There they grasped us by our shoes and hung us out of the window, heads down. Fortunately our shoe laces did not break.

As I became older and bigger myself, this form of bullying disappeared, at least for me. In high school I was the tallest boy, and physically the match of the others. Moreover, we all played on the basketball team— we had so few players for two years that we had no substitutes for competitive games with other schools— and we were all good friends. Even before entering high school I had vowed to myself there would be no more bullying of the smaller children as long as I had anything to say about it. There was none. The students had also changed. Even though basketball remained important, class work was also taken seriously.

At age fourteen, in 1928

THE KICKING FORD

W hile in high school I drove to school in a Model-T Ford as long as the roads were passable. When they were not my younger brother and I went by horseback, and, if there was snow, in a covered sled pulled by two horses. The distance was five and one half miles. Every one knows a horse may kick when it is angry. But what about a Model-T Ford? Yes, indeed, it can kick, too, and it does not even have to be angry.

To start the engine of the Model-T required turning a crank that stuck out of the front end just below the radiator. Attached to the steering wheel was a lever that controlled the spark needed to make the car start and run. This lever had to be pushed up when starting the car, or otherwise the engine might turn in a reverse direction. When that happened we said that the car "kicked", much as a horse might kick, for the crank would spin backwards and could even break the arm of the person trying to turn it. When I was growing up many farmers in the area had broken their bones that way.

That was what happened to my younger brother Art. We were on our way home from school one winter afternoon, and as we often did in those days, I drove through one of the neighbor's fields because there was too much snow on a part of the road. However, on this particular day there were also drifts of snow in the field, and one of the drifts was so deep that the car stuck and the engine stalled. Art jumped out to restart the engine by turning the crank. I pushed the spark lever up as required, but apparently not far enough. The engine "kicked" and the crank spun around the wrong way and broke Art's arm just above the wrist. His face turned white from the pain.

There was nothing to do but for me to start the engine again and drive home as quickly as possible, even though each bump of the car caused Art great agony. He did not cry but sat quietly holding his arm.

My parents quickly decided that Art needed a doctor, even though it was not clear how they would pay for one. We also had no telephone, so we had no way of calling a doctor. We therefore borrowed a better and warmer car from my brother-in-law, who was a blacksmith in the town. Then, with my older sister as companion, and with all three of us crowded into the only seat in the car, I drove the thirty miles to the doctor's office. Art sat with a dish towel tied under his broken arm and around his neck to help ease the pain, especially when we had to go over bumps, of which there were many in the winter. The drive took over an hour.

Fortunately, the doctor agreed to come immediately to his office, even though it was well into the night. He administered the ether himself to put Art to sleep, set the bone, and then covered the arm with a plaster of Paris cast. Art became ill from the ether and vomited, but he recovered quickly, and we soon left for home, arriving late at night. As I dropped off to a tired sleep I thought to myself, if only I had pushed harder on that spark lever so the engine had not kicked. But as I was to learn many times later, wishes can't undo what has been done.

With my brother Arthur at the time of my sister Mary's wedding in 1924 or 1925.
I'm wearing the short pants I disliked so much.

MY FIRST LONG PANTS

W hen I was very young all boys wore short pants. For a time I also wore button shoes that came just above the ankles. But around l924-25, when I was about ten or eleven, boys of my age began to wear long pants. So as the skirts went up for girls and young women (one wag said they couldn't get much shorter because the end was soon in sight!), the pants went down for the boys, down nearly to the floor. The cuffs also became wider, almost to the end of the shoe. Bell-bottom trousers, which had long been standard attire for the Navy enlisted personnel, became the latest in fashion for the young males. My next oldest brother even had a pair. Presidents Coolidge and Hoover, however, defied the trend and retained their narrow cuffs.

As bib-overalls were standard for every day wear, and dress short pants were only worn on Sundays or on special occasions such as a school play, I had not been greatly concerned about the length of my pants— that is, until girls, particularly one girl, began to attract my attention. When that girl gave me my first kiss one school day, I felt as if my heart had hit the back of my throat. And, of course, interest in a girl also raised the possibility of competition, in this case with a boy in the same class as I. He was one of the first boys in the intermediate grades to wear long pants, and I feared they might give him an advantage. It was also about this time that my feet seemed to be growing faster than any other part of me, so much so that they stuck out awkwardly at the bottom of my legs. Not only were my rival's feet much shorter, but the bell bottom trousers he began to wear made them look even smaller.

My mother, with a large family and little money, took a very traditional approach when it came to clothes. I was only about eleven or twelve, and in her mind boys did not wear long pants until they were confirmed in the Lutheran Church at around fourteen or fifteen. Consequently, when it came time for me to have a new suit, she decided I must have short pants.

I thought otherwise, especially when I looked at my feet and thought of that other boy with his bell bottom trousers. But how to get long pants, without openly defying my mother, was another matter. I finally decided on a form of quiet non-cooperation. I exhaled when she measured my chest, and slouched when she measured me for height and length. But she simply ignored my sulking manner and matter-of-factly went about writing down the measurements required by the form in the mail-order catalog. (My family sent away for many of its clothes this way. In addition to the wider selection in the catalog, the prices were lower than in the local store).

We were only a mile from town, and therefore did not have the usual rural mail box by the side of the road, so when a box came to us about two weeks later, it came through the local post office. When I opened the box at home, there was the suit with the short pants. Although the cloth had that new smell I liked, and my mother praised the suit, I was not eager to wear it. There was no escape, however. Hard earned money had been spent for the suit and it had to be worn. I reluctantly put it on, and, to my great discomfiture, the fit was perfect.

A short time later there was to be an evening social event at our local school, which was about five and one half miles from our farm. As was the custom in our family for all such occasions, our best clothes were to be worn. And for me that meant the suit with the short pants. I felt exposed and miserable, particularly when I thought of that other boy with his snappy- looking bell bottom trousers and his small feet. I was afraid the girl we were both after would not even look at me. Her mother always dressed her in a variety of clothes of the latest style, with skirts well above the knees.

Once the evening program at the school was over the children were free to run and play through the different rooms of the building. Until then I had managed to remain inconspicuous, hidden in the seated audience. When everyone began to move about, however, I decided the humiliation was just too great. I went into the cloak room just off my class room, and quietly remained there until it was time to go home with my parents.

My mother apparently had observed my misery, which I did not try to hide. She relented, and said I could have some long pants that she would make from a pair of bell bottom trousers that one of my older brothers had been wearing. They were gray with a black pin stripe.

My mother was a good seamstress and the trousers fit perfectly, even to the wide cuffs that came right to the toe of my shoes. No piece of clothing has ever pleased me so much. In my graphic imagination, the young girl would have eyes only for me. Never again would I go into the cloak room just to avoid being seen by my friends. Warm feelings toward my mother quickly returned.

WRESTLING A BEAR

B ears are hard to wrestle. Not only are they very strong but their fur is slippery and their body is smooth, It is difficult to get a grip on one, even if you could match the bear in strength.

When I was about fourteen years old I tried to wrestle a bear— a tame one, that is. When he stood on his hind legs he was a good six or seven feet tall, or so he seemed to me at the time, and he certainly weighed several hundred pounds.

This all came about because I did not want another boy of my age to win the attention of a high school girl I loved very much. Unfortunately for me, she didn't always return my affections, and sometimes she gave her attention to my rival just to make me feel miserable, or perhaps to make me try harder. In any event, I was not about to give up.

One summer day a traveling show came to the small town that was only a mile from our farm. In the show there were singers, magicians and tellers of funny stories. The owner of the show also sold "patent" medicines, or medicine that one could buy without a prescription from a doctor. My main interest was not patent medicine, but the act put on by the giant bear. I had no idea that a bear could be so huge.

When the man in charge of the bear finished showing how well trained and friendly his bear was (his claws were cut short and he had a steel and leather mask over his mouth), he asked for volunteers to wrestle it. And who should be the first person to come forward but my rival. He was given an old jacket to put on and then was taken into the ring with the bear and told to go at him. The bear simply embraced him with his powerful front legs, picked him up from the ground and put him back down gently, much to the amusement of the audience.

I joined in the laughter, but at the same time I realized that my rival would now be able to brag about how he had wrestled a bear, and I would have nothing equally exciting to say to the young girl I liked. There were also no wild bears in that part of North Dakota, and I might not get another chance to wrestle with a tame one. When the second call came for volunteers my hand went up immediately.

While putting on the old jacket before entering the ring, I decided to put on a better show than my friend; I would try to throw the bear off balance by rushing him and hitting him with the full force of my shoulder against his exposed ribs.

As soon as I was given the signal to "go" I struck the bear with a thud, but instead of budging him even an inch my shoulder glanced off his smooth fur and I slid to the ground. He thereupon picked me up like a baby in his arms and laid me full length on the ground. He was just too big.

But as I went back to my seat I decided that even though I did not win, I also did not lose. After all, I could now say that I had wrestled a bear, and that kept me in another kind of competition.

Or return to Table of Contents

LEAVES FROM A FARM BOY'S DIARY by Eddie W. Schodt

Story Copyright 1994 Eddie W. Schodt
All Rights Reserved
Line drawings by Frederik L. Schodt
Black and white photographs printed by Misao Mizuno

http://www.jai2.com/farm6.htm
Copyright 1998, Frederik L. Schodt
Revised -- Dec/25/98