It was during the winter of 1936 that Bond [Ashby's oldest son] stayed with us for a month and went to school to me. This meant that three generations went to school to me [Jennie, Ashby, and Bond]. I had a number of cases where a father and child and in one case where both parents and children went to me, but this was the only case where the mother, son, and grandson went to me. I also taught Johnnie [Elmo's son] to read. Very few teachers can say that they have taught three generations, but fifty years is a long time to teach. I’ll bet I don’t teach another generation.

This was a successful school although they had had lots of trouble for two years. I had no trouble of any amount. It was a large school. I had a large class in the eighth grade, and they all got diplomas. They were Beulah Combs, Edgar Gillespie, Juanita Gillespie, Harry Dillon, and some others I have forgotten.

Edgar had been having a lot of trouble, but I found him all right except a little lazy. When he got his report card, he came to me and wanted to know why he didn’t get a better report. I tried to dodge for a little. Then I looked at him and said, “If you will go to work, study some, and try to learn, I’ll give you a better grade.” He looked at me rather sour for a minute and then smiled and said, “I’ll do it, Mr. Randolph. I’ll answer every question you ask me.” From that time he studied well. When I gave him his next report card, he looked at it and grinned. I asked him how he liked it, and he said, “That’s better.” I encouraged him all I could, and he did fine. I do like to help a pupil who tries.

1937-38-Substitute Teaching and Lower Stone Creek School: The board gave the Bug Ridge School to Zana Hartley and gave me no school. The superintendent, Virgil Harris, got mad at Brady and so had it in for me. He tried to keep me from getting a school ever after, but only kept me out of a school one whole year.

The last of November I got a call to teach for a week at Baker’s Run. The teacher, a young man, went to Chicago with the 4-H club. Before I left, several of the pupils told me they intended to have me teach their school next winter.

On Friday after I got back I got a letter from Harris saying I had been given the Lower Stony Creek School to teach half time. If I would teach it, I should to be at his office Thursday and get my papers. I went right down and told them I sure would teach it.

Monday morning I headed for school. The snow was about 6 inches deep and cold as blazes. As I did not have to teach but half a day, I aimed to get there by noon. When I got there, cold and tired, I found nobody there and no fire. There was a family moving into the house right by the school house. They built a fire, and one of the children went and got four more children. So I had 7 the first day; the next day I had 11. I had over 10 on an average the first month. The average attendance for the whole term was 99 percent. Harris (the superintendent) tried to keep me from teaching full time, but the board gave me full time after the first month.

I failed to find any place to board. One place I had the children ask their parents for board, and the woman sent back word that there were 11 of them and they had four beds. I told the children I might be back and I might not. When I got to the mouth of Wolf, which was three miles from school, I was tired and it was getting dark. So I headed for Brady’s. When I got there, he wanted to know what I was doing there. I told him I was looking for a place to get out of the weather. He told me to stay there that week, and they would try to find me a place to stay after that. Alma got a camp for me to bach in about two miles from school. This made it very nice. Brady would take me part way to school of a Monday morning and bring me part way home of a Friday evening. For this I paid the rest ($150) back on the farm.

I had a very nice time as there were only 11 scholars and five grades. We had a Parent Teachers Association meeting, which was attended by several out of the district and was very good. Before school was out, they got up a petition for me to teach the next year, which was signed by everyone in the district and two or three outside who said they would send if I got the school. This would make 27 scholars to attend.

No School, 1938-39-Ashby’s Illness: When the board met, Frank Hosey (the member from Holley) told the board that he had promised the Baker’s Run School that he would send me there. However, it was a long way and they all wanted me at Stony Creek; so he would favor my going there. This was agreed to; then when all teachers were placed, Harris said they would not have any school at Stony Creek. Hosey knew this was a plan to keep me from teaching, so he asked the other members if I should have the school if it was taught. They all agreed. Brady was nominated for the board by a good majority at the primary (I worked for him at Wolf and got all the Democratic votes but nine, about 95%). At the next meeting Harris proposed another man for the school. Three of the members backed down, and I got no school.

This did not prove to be quite as bad as it seemed, for Ash took sick the last of August and sent for Mamma. Three days later Brady called me at 11 at night and told me to be ready in half an hour to go to Ash’s. Brady, Mary, and I went. Brady drove like John! When we got there, I didn’t believe he would live 24 hours. The next morning we took him to the hospital. They found he had double pneumonia, blood poison in the blood tubes, and some other troubles. Mamma stayed with the children till March, and Ruth stayed at the hospital with Ash. So you see there would have been no one to have looked after things at home if I had taught that winter. After losing one leg, Ash has been able to teach for the last ten years.

I was sure glad to see Mamma when she got home in March. I didn’t have so much to do, but it was lonely to be by myself for seven months. It was fine to have her back.

Cleveland School, 1939-40: One of the board members told me in the spring of 1939 that he intended for me to have the Cleveland School. Ed Davis got up a petition for me (I knew nothing about it), and every one in the district signed it. When Ed took the petition, they asked him if the teacher they had wasn’t all right. He said he was not complaining about their teacher but that they wanted me. Harris replied, “You had just as well understand that you won’t get him. Ed looked at Harris and said, “We will too, and you can’t help it.” I got the school, and Harris couldn’t help it,though he tried.

Stories About Mountain People

I think it will be well to tell two or three stories so everyone will get a better idea of these mountain people. These stories I take from Stories of the Elk (a number of stories written by Bill Byrne, who once had been prosecuting attorney of Braxton).

Victim of a Scam: Bill Byrne and Jake Fisher and several others (among whom was Squirley Bill Carpenter, who was noted as a hunter and fisher and as a teller of tall tales) were going down to Clay Court House. As there was a circus in town, they had to visit it before they could go. There was a doctor there, a fine fellow who lived out in the country; a man came to him and told him they made the best gate in the world and they wanted someone to handle it in Braxton. He said he had been told that the doctor was just the man they wanted and that the doctor would not have to do any selling. They would ship the gates to him; people would come and get them and pay him; and he would keep half and send them the other half. But to show his good faith, he must make a deposit of $25, which he did.

A little later he got worried and tried to find the man, but he couldn’t. Then he yelled for Byrne and wanted him to arrest the man. Byrne wanted to know where the man was and who he was, but the doctor didn’t know. So Byrne told him he couldn’t do anything about it. The doctor just raved, things were in a fine shape when an honest man could be cheated and nothing be done about it. A crowd had gathered and a boy called out, “Doctor, it ain’t a lawyer you need; it’s a guardeen.” The doctor looked at the boy a moment and then said, “Bub, I expect you are right.” That settled the whole thing.

A Big Fish Tale: They went down the river in a boat, and on the way Byrne gigged a very large Jack Pike. It began to rain as they came to an old mill, so they ran under it to get out of the rain. They began to brag on the pike. Squirley said, “I saw a lot bigger one. One day I was coming down the river just as we did today, and a rain came up just as it did today. I ran under here as we did today, and I looked down and there was a pike in the spillway. It was so long it couldn’t turn around. I ran and got my gig and gigged it. It was six feet long; I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles this high,” and he raised up on his toes and lifted up his arms and tipped into the spillway. The men all jumped down to help him out, but his son Squack never made a move to help. When the men got him out, nearly drowned, Squack looked at him and said, “Dad, if that fish had been one inch longer, you would have drowned in spite of Hell.”

Monk Dillon: Monk Dillon owned 200 acres on Bug Ridge, of which our farm was a part. He had a brother about 70 years old who stayed in Sutton during the summer and tended gardens and worked in livery barns or anything an old man could do. Then he would go up on Bug Ridge to his brother Monk’s, who always had corn bread, hominy, and sow belly (his neighbors said the meat didn’t all come from his own hogs). It seemed Monk rode his brother pretty hard. One winter it seemed he rode him harder than usual, but he couldn’t drive him from his corn pone and sow belly.

The next spring the old man saw Monk on the street talking to two men, so he went over to see if he could get even for the way he had been treated. Just as he got there, he heard Monk say, “I’ll leave it to you men, if being an honorable man I could do that.” This was the brother’s chance, and he said, “Honorable man, hell! Didn’t you shoot Mint Squire’s big gat sow?” The answer was, “What if I did? Didn’t you hep cad her in?”

Now Squire had lost a big sow (all hogs ran out in the woods), and he was going to have Monk indicted for stealing his hog. Monk paid for it to save himself from the law.

Monk had 10 or 12 children. The girls would run and hide when anyone came, even when they were grown. Monk raised lots of wheat. At threshing time the workers had to go inside the house and up some steps to put the wheat in a box in the loft. As a neighbor went in with a load of wheat, one of the girls took up the stairs; of course, the man followed her. Now the upper floor was laid with loose boards. As she ran across the floor, she stepped on a board that didn’t reach the joist. It tipped up; she went down right into the flour barrel. The flour rose right up and settled all over her.

The man was not immoral, but unmoral. A preacher told me that Monk said, when he was 80 years old, that he had never heard a sermon preached. So the preacher held meeting where Monk was and preached so he could say he had heard one sermon. It hardly seems possible anyone could be so ignorant in the last forty years.

Elmo and Madeline Married in 1937

In 1937 Elmo and Madeline were married and spent their honeymoon in a 4-H camp in New York. Madeline came down and stayed a while with us that fall. One Sabbath we went up to see Ozenia Bee and her sister Maggie. This was a very nice trip. We also went to the Homecoming at Salem.

My Final Years of Teaching

Back at Poplar Ridge, 1939-41: The winter of 1939-40 I taught on Poplar Ridge. This was quite a different school from what it was when I taught there in the 1920s. Then I had 59; this time I had 26. When I first taught there, they knew nothing about real study, and most of them would not talk and had no interest in going to high school. Now they were nearly all planning to go to high school; in fact, nearly half of them did go to high school. I feel that I had much to do with this happy condition. But there are still too many who will pick up things which belong to someone else. Still, I think many have changed about that.

Teachers Get Tenure: This winter the legislature passed the Tenure of Office Bill. Teachers no longer had to be appointed every year. This meant I had a school for some years to come, but I could retire at 65 (I was 67 then) and receive a pension. Retirement was optional with us until 1945, when a new law passed that a teacher must retire at 65 unless the State Board of Education agreed to his continuing.

Second Year at Poplar Ridge: The second winter I had trouble to get a place to stay. I tried to get a house of Dave Hosey. But his boy (Skip) would not move out till the last of October. So I boarded at Dave’s till the first of December. The boy did not move out, and Dave charged too much. Ed Davis was fixing a small building for me to live in till Skip moved out (I had arranged with Ed to move over there when Skip moved out). Dave found out about it and told me Ed could keep me till he got the house fixed. This proved very satisfactory, for the house was large enough and very comfortable. Ed’s were all very nice to me. In fact, it was one of the best winters that I boarded away from home. Dave was mad at me for four or five years, but one day I met him in Sutton and he came reaching out his hand to shake hands and was as friendly as ever. I was glad of this; Dave and I had been close friends, and I just don’t like to have folks mad at me.

Brady told me in the early fall that one of the board members said he intended to see I got the Bug Ridge School. I told him I didn’t want it, for I was sure it would not be pleasant. In February Brady told me again that the same member said he intended to see I got the school. By this time I had got tired of getting up by 6 a.m. and walking six miles through a foot of snow of a Monday to school and having Mamma stay by herself and do all the feeding five days a week.

This was my last winter at Poplar Ridge. These last two years, there were six eighth grade diplomas; in the six years I was there, there were 14 diplomas received. When you consider that in the 60 years before I went to Poplar Ridge there had been no diplomas and then in 6 years there were 24, I feel pretty good. The fact is that the school had been doing so poorly and the house was such a disgrace that the parents and children (though they did not know it) were ready for someone to come and teach a real school; I arrived at the opportune time. When I went up there to get votes for Brady, some of them said to me, “Of course we will vote for Brady for the work you did for our children.” All things work together for good, etc.

Mamma went to Alfred and stayed at Elmo’s for two months when Dan was born in July, 1941. I did very little while she was gone, for my ankles were hurting me badly and she told me to do nothing but the chores. The rest seemed to help me lots.

Bug Ridge School, 1941-45: In 1941 I had a large school. I had a good-sized eighth grade class to graduate this year. Among these were Thelma Combs, Gay Ellison, and a Stewart girl. There may have been others, but I don’t remember them. The Stewart girl started to school her first year at Upper Wolf and years later got her diploma at Bug Ridge. We had a fine school this winter with very little trouble.

At Christmas time we had a program. It was not extra good as we could not get the children to learn their parts well. I have always thought a good program was very valuable. In some schools I think it is of untold value. I think our programs at Poplar Ridge were of more value than several months of school. This was because the children were so timid and not willing to talk. They sure got over it before I left.

It was this winter that we got into World War II. They asked the teachers to get help and do the rationing. I got three women (Mamma and two others) to help, and we put in two days. Later we had to do a second job. The second year they asked for milkweed balls and scrap iron. We did fairly well with the weed, but we got a very fine lot of iron. In the fall of 1942 the government asked all schools to collect as much scrap iron as possible. The superintendent told all teachers to spend three days with their scholars and get all the scrap they could find. We got several tons-in fact, we were among the best in the county. We took an interest in everything the government asked us to do.

Each of the four years I taught at Bug Ridge, I had a class to graduate. The first year there were three, all girls – a Combs girl, a Stewart girl, and an Ellison girl. The third year Zeno Watts graduated. The last year I had two – Iolene Combs and the Ellison boy. Bob Combs took Iolene and me down [to the graduation ceremony]. I had not intended to go, but he asked me to go as a favor; of course, I went.

Two or three of my “friends” got sore and tried to get up a petition to get me out. When they talked to some of the others, they said I could teach their children and they were satisfied. This put a stop to the racket.

I told the superintendent that I was willing to teach to the end of the war as teachers were so scarce; he said they would like for me to do that. I told the children in the fall of 1944 if the war closed that year that I would resign at the end of the term. I decided early in 1945 that the war would end that year. Then I told Olta I was resigning so she had best look after her interests, and I wrote a letter resigning and told the children I had resigned. Olta went right down and got the school for the next winter. I was very glad of that. Although there were two or three that got out with me, I think everyone was my friend when I left. At least they have all been very friendly when we went back.

This was a rather backward school. Most of the children did not learn very well, and their moral status was very low. You could not believe what many said, and their fingers were so sticky. Yes, and they knew nothing about property rights. When I went to school the first day, the glass was broken out of more than half the windows and the roof was torn off the coal house. The children said the teacher watched them tear it off at noon and recess. The sash was broken out of some of the windows. One of the board told me that they gave me that school because I had taken such good care of the house at Poplar Ridge and maybe I could care for that one, too. There were no windows broken out while I was there.

Selling Fruit Trees: I began to sell fruit trees for Stark Brothers. I had fine luck. In the next few years I sold several hundred dollars worth besides getting our own trees much cheaper. I sold trees for at least 15 years and enjoyed it very much. I liked to get out among the farmers.

Weasels and Hawks in our Poultry: Elmo came up again and spent the summer with me. It was this summer that Pepper decided to clean the farm of weasels. He started by finding four in a rock pile. We got them all, an old one and three young ones about three-fourths grown.

We had two old hens and 24 little chickens in a coop up by the new house we were building. One morning when we went to work, we found one old hen dead and all the little chickens gone. I told Elmo that it was a weasel and told him to go down and get the guns and we would get the nasty thief before night. About 4 p.m. Pepper said he had found it in a brush pile. I asked Elmo if he would shoot it if I scared it out; he said he sure would. I scared it out, but no shot was fired. I asked him why he didn’t shoot. He said it went so fast he didn’t have a chance. Then I asked him if he would shoot it if I scared it out again. He said he absolutely would, but no shot was fired when it came out. I told him he had let it get away, but Pepper soon said it was up a bushy, leafy poplar. You ought to have heard that pup rave!

We soon located the thieving murderer. Elmo tried the .22, but he was so nervous that he missed. Then he grabbed the shot gun and rolled him out. So ended the weasels’ first attempt to sabotage the Randolphs’ poultry business in the death of the saboteur.

Three more times our poultry were raided. The next time I had gone to the lower hen house late in the evening to feed the hens. When I came back, I found a nice big young rooster dead. I picked it up to see what was the matter and found its throat was out. I went into the house. The cat came in and ran under the bed. Something squalled, and I smelled a weasel. Just then I saw a weasel run from under the bed. It got behind a board in the other room, and I shot it. So that was number two properly avenged.

The third time a weasel killed five young guineas in about one minute. When the old hen squalled, Archie, Mamma, Pepper and I rushed out. Pepper chased it up a bush, and Archie shot at it and missed. As that was the only shell we had, Archie went to Ira’s and got a shell and killed it. So five little guineas were most perfectly avenged.

Now comes the fourth attack on the poultry industry. One morning when we went out where about 300 young chickens were in open shelters, we found a chicken with its throat cut. Pepper took the weasel’s trail and holed it under a stump, but we couldn’t get it. That night I told Pepper to watch the chickens. When we went out the next morning, the chickens were all right. Pepper ran under the hill and said that he knew where the cowardly little thief was. We went down and dug it out. Pepper at once showed that blood-thirsty varmint that he was more than a match for any four-footed blood-sucker that ever lived. Never again did the weasel clan challenge our ability to protect our kingdom.

Before we conquered the weasels, we had another enemy to meet. I had a flock of 13 lovely young chickens. When I came home one Wednesday, there were only 12; on Thursday evening there were 11; and Friday there were only 10. When I saw how my flock was being destroyed, I said, “You have got your last chicken.” I watched all day; about 5 p.m. I heard a fuss from the chickens. I saw the hawk coming and waited till it was right over the chickens; then I let him have it. He dropped to the ground with such a surprised look on his face. He took a step or two and ceased to exist. He had paid the penalty for trying to destroy all the poultry on the farm of the Randolphs. The next morning just after daylight, I saw the mate of the hawk I killed sitting in a tree, so I shot it. This ended the threat to my little chickens.

Soon after this I found a hen had been killed by a hawk. This kept up till they had-killed three or four hens. I tried every way I could but failed to get it. One day after school was out Bee Huffman and I were up by the three walnuts when he saw a big hawk on the fence. I ran and got the gun. When I shot, Bee said I got it for it could hardly fly. I lost no more chickens, so I guess I did. This ended my trouble with hawks, but I had a few chickens stolen.

One evening when I came from school, I saw one of my roosters (worth at least $24) and four hens were gone. I thought at first that someone had stolen them to get a pen of superfine Rhode Island Reds, but Brady found the rooster’s band near a house on the outskirts of Sutton. A girl with a very shady reputation lived there, and two boys from the Ridge were going to see her. They undoubtedly had taken them down to have chicken to eat. Brady gave the band to the state cop and told him to go and get them. The cop was sent to another beat the next day and took the band with him, so we lost the evidence and could do nothing about it. We never lost more than two or three chickens at a time, and that was by boys who ate them.

More About Pepper: Pepper was a great hunter, but the trouble was he would go out before hunting season and get all the possums on the farm. The boys who hunted said there was no need to hunt on our farm for Pepper got them all. (I failed to tell that Elmo left Pepper on the farm when he went back to Salem the second summer.) Many a night I would hear Pepper barking and would know he would stay till daylight when the possum would come down and then he would die.

Pepper went everywhere with me. One night as we came from Sutton he found a fine big possum near the road. He went with me to Upper Wolf School every day but two. The children loved to have him there. Two or three times someone tried to claim the pup, but I said, “No,” very emphatically.

He had one very bad fault. He would go courting. One time he went down to Sutton and was gone for two weeks. Nearly all dogs in the country were poisoned, and I gave Pepper up, but he came home. As is sure to happen, he went once too often; and a man down on Buckeye who had a gyp shot him. He was very old, so he would not go out with me to work in hot weather but would come down to me in the evening. So died a noble dog, whose one fault, if it was a fault, was overshadowed by the finest nature and greatest intelligence with the truest loyalty, with no fear nor the least care for what might happen to him while he was doing what he felt was his work. I am no child nor have dealt with but few dogs but have owned some very fine dogs (in fact, I owned a very fine dog since Pepper died). But with all due respect to other dogs I ever owned and all dogs owned by anyone else, to my mind he stood head and shoulders above all of them. I declare of all dogs I ever knew, he was prince of them all.

Back at Poplar Ridge, 1929-30

The winter of 1929-30 I taught at Poplar Ridge, which was my last term for several years as I wanted to teach nearer the farm on Bug Ridge. This winter I did not board at Hosey’s. Instead I bached in a shanty out at Curt Hosey’s.

There was quite a mix-up about my assistant. The board hired Clyde Facemire’s girl (one of the board said she had been loafing on the job and they thought I would make her teach), but on the first day there was no assistant. I let a high school girl who wanted to teach that day take charge. At recess an auto drove up and a lady got out. She said she was Mrs. Skidmore, a sister of the girl who had the school, that Clyde’s girl let her sister have the school when she decided not to teach it. Her sister (Miss Ann Baxter) had been in an auto wreck and could not come to teach her school for a month. Mrs. Skidmore said she would come at the first of the next week and teach for three weeks till her sister could come. About 9 p.m. Clyde’s girl came up and said she was the teacher of the Cleveland School and that she would be up the next morning to teach. She did not come, and Miss Baxter taught the school. She was a very bright girl, but I found from her own account that she was tricky and thought it was smart to cheat.

Trouble at a Christmas Program: This year we planned a Christmas program, and one of the toughs bragged he would break it up. I had never asked for help, but I decided that two rooms, a hall and a big porch were more than I could handle by myself. I decided I would need two to help me. The trustee agreed he would help, but I didn’t believe he would be much help. So I went to Ed Davis (a big able man who was a special friend of mine), and he said, “Mr. Randolph, I’ll do anything you tell me to do. If you tell me to knock a man down, I’ll knock him down. If you tell me to throw him out of the house, I’ll throw him out.” I said, “All right, we’ll have a program.” A few days later Ene Perine (another big man) sent me word if I needed help he would help. I told his boy to tell him okay.

But as so often happens, when I needed help, none of them were there. A drunk man came onto the lot and began to swear. I allowed no swearing on the school grounds, so I said to him, ”We allow no swearing on the school grounds.” His reply was, “That’s the way we are in the habit of talking when we are out in the woods.” “Pardon me, you are not out in the woods tonight.” He kept on talking, and I told him there was no use talking, that he had to stop swearing. He wanted to know what I would do if he didn’t stop. I told him I’d put him in Sutton jail. “Sutton jail? That’s a pretty bad place, isn’t it?” he said. I told him there was no use talking about it, just stop swearing. He turned to Hans Hosey and said, “That’s the way we talked out in the woods, ain’t it, Hans?” Hans told him yes, but that no swearing would be allowed there.

I felt that I was in a tight place as he was considered a dangerous man and there seemed to be no help near. There were two Hosey boys (about 20 years old) standing on the porch. After Harris left, one of them said to me, “Mr. Randolph, we boys don’t want any trouble. We came here with our mothers and sisters to have a nice time. If there is any trouble, call on us.” This made me feel good!

One who said he would help me was out in the woods with another man. I guess they thought there was likely to be trouble so they were getting them a cudgel apiece. When they heard what had happened, one of them said, “We’ll fill Sutton jail.” The other spoke up, “Don’t say a word about Sutton jail. We’ll give ‘em a hospital bill.” That settled the whole trouble.

A little later the man came out and said he didn’t mean any harm and that he would like to stay in and listen to the program. His nephew told him, “You’ve got too much, Charley.” “Yes,” he said, “I’ve got too much. I’ll just go on out the road,” and he did. His nephew told me he’d see that Charley didn’t bother us.

I expected trouble later, but he said when he sobered up that he got a bottle of whiskey when he got off the train at Centralia and drank too much and that I treated him exactly right by making him behave himself. So this ended happily, and I found I had the backing of the whole neighborhood.

This was the last program I had here for several years. I had a warm spot in my heart for these people. Whenever I went back, which was often, or whenever I met any of them, they had a warm welcome for me.

Friends on Poplar Ridge: I think it would be well for me to mention a few of my friends up on Poplar Ridge. Ed Davis was one of my stanch friends who got me the school again in 1939 and I would like to see him again. He sent nine children to me.

Martin Lynch was a good friend. He sent seven to me. Hans Hosey was another friend. Although he could not read, he sent his girl to me till she got an eighth grade diploma. Uncle Sell and Aunt Nancy Hosey were among my splendid friends. Their girl Gladys got a diploma. Dave and Sarah Hosey were where I boarded for three years and were among my best friends during my first four years of teaching there. Four of their children went to me. The youngest graduated from high school. Dave’s youngest brother was a good friend who sent five children to school to me.

I don’t want to forget John Dillon, who told me when I went there that he was 72 years old and the father of 22 children (there were two born after that) and that he hoped to have children in school as long as he lived. He sent eight to me. He died at the age of 90 and had two still in school.

A. C. Hosey was a friend with whom I spent one winter in a shanty and roomed one winter in his home. I boarded one winter with A. C.’s boy, who married Lexie Lynch. They were very nice to me. I think this is about enough to show I had a lot of friends.

I should mention Ene Perine, whose two boys went to school to me and then graduated from high school. Preacher Heron was a splendid friend, although none of his children went to school to me. I feel that I did good work in that school.

Spruce Lick School, 1930-31

I will now go to the winter of 1930-31, when I stayed at the Spruce Lick School. I will not write much about this school, for I am ashamed of it. If I had known what I was getting into, I would never have taught it-never, never!

You may wonder what kind of school could have such an effect on one who had taught where he had the worst, most disobedient, the vilest, the worst liars, the degenerate, and the immoral. But where others disobeyed, these didn’t know the meaning of the word obey. Where others were vile, these were below beasts. Where others were liars, these did not know truth. Where others were degenerate, these were reprobates. Where others were immoral, these knew not what the word moral meant. You ask, “How can children be so low?” That’s easy; they drank it in from their parents, from other people, and from other children as a baby drinks in its first breath of air.

Now don’t get the idea that there were no respectable people in the neighborhood, but they were so very scarce. Their children had grown up in the riffraff so that there were no high grade students among them.

I have had some filthy children in school, but I never saw anything like these children. An 8-year-old girl would write filthy stuff on a piece of paper, throw it down on the floor, then pick it up and bring it up to me and say she found it on the floor. I finally told her she wrote it herself and not to bring any more to me or she would be in bad. That stopped it. They would steal out chalk and write filth on stones and fences. I would not have taught that school again for twice the wages.

One of the toughest of these girls married Harm Sanson the next winter, when she was hardly 15. One of my friends speaking of her called her, “Harm’s little Hell Cat.” I thought this was a perfect description of her.

No School, 1931-32 This school cost me dearly, for one member of the board refused to give me a school. Brady went to him about it, but he denied it. Brady said to him, “You are a dirty, stinking skunk, and I believe you are a dirty liar.” Brady then went over to the secretary and to another member of the board, who told him no one else had said a word against my having a school except Marshal Skidmore. So Brady went back and told him, “Marshal, I told you, you were a dirty stinking skunk and that I believed you were a dirty liar; now I know it.” Marshal went off waving his hand back and saying, “Brady, I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

The next winter I saw him (he was running for re-election), and he came up and shook hands and asked me if I was going to ask for a school. I answered very firmly, “I am.” He said, “That’s all right. Maybe you are mad at me. Your son is very mad at me.” I told him I was; not because he didn’t give me a school but for denying he was to blame when he was. He tried to dodge, but I gave him no consolation.

He tried for a solid hour to keep me from getting a school when the board met, but my friend Barnett stayed with him and got me a school. I did not electioneer against friend Skidmore, but I heard of numbers of people whom I had never known saying, “I won’t vote for Skidmore for the way he treated Randolph.” When the voting was over, both the other candidates beat him badly.

Improving the Farm: While I had no school, I built fences, cleaned up the farm, and began to keep stock on it. Brady let me have a cow to keep that he bought and did not need. We kept Old White Face (that was the cow’s name) for eight or ten years. She raised eight or nine calves and made Brady $200, although she only cost him $25.

In the spring of 1932 Pud Gillespie and I drove the posts and strung the wire from the Stout line to the road just below where the house now is, thus separating the orchard from the pasture. A little later Clyde Garrison and I ran the fence down the road to the Huffman line. After that we cut the timber for 18,000 feet of lumber. Hezzie Tharp hauled the logs. He had enough lumber to build a house, where Archie’s lived, and a good barn.

Upper Wolf School, 1932-33

The winter of 1932-33 I taught the Upper Wolf School. I had a very successful term except there was not enough money for but 4½ months of school. I taught an extra month as the children were badly behind in their grades and I wanted to promote them.

At Christmas time we invited the parents in to a little program. I had them do some spelling, some ciphering, some reciting of poetry, and writing on the board by the first grade. In fact, I gave them a fair idea of what they were learning. There was a fair number of the parents, both men and women, present. I called on each of them to speak, and three or four did. Ev Facemire said he knew that his two girls had made between one and two grades. He thought they must be an exception, but he saw that the others were doing the same. He went on to say that a first grade girl wrote better than half the teachers in Braxton County.

Jim Davis told us that he was more than pleased with the school; then in less than a month he was trying to get the patrons to work to get Zena Hartley to teach their school the next winter. He went to one of my friends and said, “We can get Zena Hartley to teach our school next winter.” His reply was, “I’m very well suited with the teacher we have.”

Of course there was a good reason why Jim wanted Zena to teach there. His son Bill, a widower with three children, was courting Zena. She would board at Jim’s and Bill could court her. A lot of people are selfish, and Jim was very selfish.

I taught four weeks free and built the fire and swept the house most of the time. As soon as they found I would teach some extra time, a few of them asked, “Can they make us go?” Only about 14 came, and about 10 quit. I told them when the government offered ten pounds of meat free, worth about 75 cents, they would go 15 to 20 miles and spend all day to get it. But when they were offered a free education for their children, they would keep them at home. “Oh, consistency, thou art a jewel.”

An Orchard on Our Farm

When school was out, I went back to work on the farm. About 1930 I set a piece of ground across the road from our place, on Clyde Facemire’s farm, in fruit trees. There were about seven acres of it. Clyde furnished the trees; Brady and I were to take care of the orchard and get all the fruit and crops that grew on it for ten years. We did not get much fruit, but we did get a lot of crops. When Clyde took it over, it was a very fine orchard, and it has since developed into one of the best orchards in Braxton County. I set out an orchard on our farm also. It is also a fine orchard, but it was slow to develop as it did not have the care it should have had.

Archie and Avis Move to Our Farm During the Depression

In March of this year Archie came up and wanted to build a house on the farm and work for some things on the farm when he didn’t have work on the W.P.A. or some government job. We had the lumber, so Brady and I both said okay. So Archie and I said we would build the house in a jiffy, which we did and soon had it ready for them to go to housekeeping.

The committee would not give Archie any work, so Brady wrote to Charleston and told them about it. He reminded them that the president had advised young couples to leave the cities, go out on farms, get work with the W.P.A. part-time and work on the farm to help out. He told them Archie had done this and they wouldn’t give him a day’s work. The next day the lady who had charge came rushing into the post office and said to Brady, “What in the world did you write to those folks down at Charleston? I just got a letter that would burn you up.” Brady answered her, “Why didn’t you give him work?” Brady told her he must have at least three days a week, and he got it. We sure stick together.

Archie and I worked together and raised a fine crop. The children ran loose on the farm and got fat.

More Snakes: One evening the Swigers were going to a neighbors but forgot something and sent Alois (he was four years old) back after it. He soon came back and said there was a snake by the door. Archie went back and found a copperhead lying by the door. Archie immediately sent it to the land of forgetfulness.

This was a small one, but I killed two or three very large ones. I killed two between the garden and the hen house-both were large. One of these crawled across the path and stopped with its head on one side of the path and its tail on the other. If it had gone ahead, it would have been safe, for there was thick grass just beyond. But it stopped to watch me, so I called Mamma. She brought me a hoe, and I killed it.

I think the largest snake I ever saw was in the corn near the Stout line. The bull dog we got from Archie was trailing, and every little bit she would jump back as if there was a snake. I went to look, and a snake was coiled up in a low place two rows above the one I was hoeing. I killed it quick. I am sure it was as large as my wrist and 3½ feet long. It sure was some snake!

I am sure of all the copperheads I ever saw, I only let two or three get away. This is quite a record as they stay in big grass or filth. I think this will be enough to prove that I lived in a rather wild section.

Archie worked on a high school project until in the fall, when they started building sanitary toilets. He got a job as foreman on a gang on Bug Ridge. This let him get to his work without walking so far, and the pay was very good. When they quit building toilets, he went back to Ohio and got a job. Avis soon went to him.

More About Schools

I taught the same school the next winter. This winter I had a good school and a number of very good friends. Among whom were John Woods, Jim Hosey, Barnett the mailman, and Ev Facemire.

In the late winter a new school law was passed in West Virginia making the county the school unit. The state superintendent of schools appointed the new school board until an election was held. The son-in-law of John D. Sutton was appointed as president, and he got the other members to agree they would hire no married women nor old teachers. So I was left out for the two years he was in office. Brady went to see if he couldn’t get him to change his mind and give me a school. He told Brady to tell me to get another job as I would never get another school. He was running for a second term, and Brady told him he had better be careful as another man tried the same thing and was not elected. He said he was not afraid of that, but he was defeated just the same.

No School for Two Years: For two years I had no school (1934-36), and things were rather tough. I sold some fruit trees, got a few days teaching, raised my own meat and potatoes and had my butter and eggs. In the term of 1934-35 I got some teaching to do as substitute, but they got another teacher to do some of it. I got along but was not able to pay any on the farm. Neither was Brady, but they did not crowd us.

Squire Baughman got the Lower Stony Creek School the term of 1935-36 and died in February. The superintendent told Brady that I was to finish the school, but the substitute teacher cut such a fuss about it that the board let her have it. They told Brady not to act mad as they could not help it, but that I should have a school the next winter (1936).

A Hard Winter: The winter of 1934-35 was a very hard one, and we had three or four very deep snows that lay on a long time. Jennie and Elmo planned to come to the Ridge for Christmas, but the snow was so deep a car could not get on the Ridge. They wrote for me to come down to Sutton and Elmo would meet me there. The snow was very deep, but I waded down Buckeye to Sutton. When I got there, Elmo was not there. So I trudged back through the snow to the Ridge. They wrote me that the roads were so slick and covered with ice that everyone said it would be all any one’s life was worth to go on the road afoot, much less in an auto. It sure was so, and I expect it was very lucky he did not try it.

The snow lay on for several weeks, and it was very cold. It finally went off and got some warmer, but it was still cold. I had to carry the fodder from across the road (about 150 yards) and go into the woods nearby and saw wood-I had become an expert one-man sawer-and carry it up to the house.

One day I had no wood nor fodder either. It seemed to be going to get warmer, so I decided to wait till about 3 p.m. and get fodder and wood to last two or three days. Just before 3 p.m. I noticed the sun had ceased to shine and it was getting dark. So I grabbed my hat and coat, picked up a rope, and ran for the fodder. The wind was howling. Before I got to the fodder, the snow was a regular blizzard. When I got a load, the wind would almost pick me up and take me to the barn. I carried fodder, took care of the stock, cut wood and piled it in the house till after dark. By that time it was cold. I got my supper, made a roaring fire, and sat by it till nearly midnight. I could not go to sleep, for the wind shook the house and the cold seemed to penetrate every place. We had a thermometer that would register 10 degrees below. When I got up the next morning, there was more than a foot of snow on the ground. The mercury was down in the bulb, and it never came back in sight for three days and nights. It was 17 degrees for some time.

I had between 10,000 and 12,000 feet of lumber, and I got Cliff Gillespie to snake it up through Olta’s place on the snow. He brought a big team he had one Friday morning. I went down and uncovered the lumber and helped him load till 11 o’clock. Then I went up to get his dinner. It was very cold, and he said I froze out. I went back after dinner, but we did not get along very well as we were dragging it on the ground. The snow went off over the end of the week, so we did not get to haul right away again.

In about a week we had another fall of snow just about as deep as the other one (this made three snows of over a foot) which laid on the ground for some weeks. Cliff came back and cut a forked sapling, nailed a 2 by 4 on the back end, and put the end of the lumber on this and chained it fast. This way we took it out, as Father used to say, “like a hen a walking.” Cliff told me when he got in that first night and began to get warm that he began to ache and that he didn’t get over it for several days. In fact, he was nearly frozen. After the first day we got along fine. Some of the neighbors wanted the job and said it was worth $10 per M. I got it done by the day for about $1.75. I was lucky to have a fine snow to skid it on.

Raising and Selling Pigs: I kept a sow and raised two litters of pigs (one in the spring and one in the fall). Then I would butcher her and keep a pig to raise more pigs. It got so people would speak for pigs and not take them. This would leave them on my hands, so I quit raising pigs.

One time I had four hogs to kill. Elmo and Ashby came up one morning and butchered one of them and took it to Salem. About the middle of December Cliff and I butchered the others. While we were butchering them, a man by the name of Collins, from Sutton, came to buy some potatoes to take to Burgoo. Cliff told me to let him take one of the hogs, pay for what he could sell and bring back the rest. Cliff said he was all right, so I let him have one cheap. He came back with the money and wanted another, but a cent less. I let him have it, but he never came back. He paid Brady all but $11. He said he couldn’t sell it all and the snow was so deep he couldn’t bring it back. He took it a second trip and sold it on time and would pay it as soon as he got it. But he never paid. He was all right, Brady told me, for he owned a house in Sutton and was a big church member. The house belonged to his wife and he was a dirty rascal.

Cliff said he would get it for me as he was to blame for his getting the hog. But Collins would not pay. I finally traded it on a billy goat. I offered him a fair trade, but he wanted some boot. He thought he could get the money from Collins, so I let him have an order and told him he could have all he could get out of it. He never – got – a – cent.

Loans Never Repaid: I should not complain, for I loaned money to a number who were in need and never got it back. A Sutton boy borrowed $3 to meet his girl and get married. They lived together about three months, and she left him. I never got the $3.

I loaned $10 to Boo Cutlip during World War II to go into Ohio to a job. I never got it. I loaned Wilson Stout $25 to take his family to a war job; I never saw a cent of it. I did loan to some who paid. I just charge it to profit and loss.

Jennie Came to Bug Ridge, 1936

In the spring of 1936 Jennie came onto the Ridge to stay, and was I glad! Elmo had gone to the Seminary at Alfred, and he did not come to stay with us any more. We raised a fine garden and had fruit-strawberries, grapes, peaches, cherries, and apples and some years, plums and apricots. We raised potatoes and corn. We always had one or two hogs to kill besides having plenty of eggs and chickens. Jennie worked hard and helped raise things, so we had plenty to eat. I had a school this winter, and we had two cows and several chickens, so we got along very well.

This was one of the mildest winters I had ever seen. We had only two little snows (not enough to track anything) till March. Peaches and plums were in bloom in February. Of course, we had none of them as a snow fell the first of March (six inches deep), and it was 10 degrees above.

Things were much easier this winter as Mamma was here and I only had to do the chores and get the wood.

More Improvements on our Farm: In the fall we cut a lot of logs for a barn. That winter I hired Cliff Gillespie and Worthie Thorp to build the barn. Ira helped some. I had some trouble about the roof. I wanted a galvanized roof. There was only partly enough in town, so I had the hardware man order it. It was supposed to come in three days, but it didn’t. A week passed; a big snow came, and still no roofing. After two weeks I bought rubber roofing and finished the barn. I got a very good barn that was warm and very handy. Cliff did a very good job and did it cheap. This was one of the best improvements I had made on the farm.

A few years later I got a fine cellar with cement walls and floor. Charley and Ed Davis built it for me. I got George Thorp to move a house that stood by the side of it over on the cellar, so we had a cellar and a cellar house.

I could keep all the stock in the barn, feed them there and never have to milk in the cold, snow, or rain. Oh, it was grand! The cellar was also grand. We could keep the milk and butter nice and cool, keep the airtights in perfect shape and also keep the apples, potatoes, turnips, and all kinds of vegetables in fine shape-and we didn’t have to be bothered with rats. We now had a good barn, a good cellar and a good hen house, and a fairly good house. We also had a good well, but it was very unhandy. It looked as if we were about ready to live.

Poplar Ridge School: The school was ten miles from Sutton on the road to Centralia. Before I went up there, Brady said to me, “Dad, it’s a little school. You be real good to them, and you will get to teach it for years.” I went up there Sunday afternoon and found a house 22 ft. by 13 ft., not fit to keep chickens in. The seats were dilapidated, some broken down, others loose so they reeled back and forth, while some were fairly good. There were not nearly enough chairs for the children. The children told me later that they had been in the habit of running back and forth over the tops of the seats at noon and recess.

When I rang the bell Monday at 9 a.m., the children came running in like rabbits from a broom sedge field. They filled up the seats, two and three to a seat, and I started to classify them. I found two girls in the seventh grade, which was the highest grade the first winter. One of the girls would talk, but the other one would merely grin. I asked them if they could add, subtract, multiply and divide. The one said, “Yes, we can.” I told them to go to the board and gave them a fair-sized problem in addition. I stopped them when they began to count. The third time I stopped them, they said that was all they could do. I stepped to the board and showed them how to add. They said they couldn’t do it that way. I asked if any of the sixth or fifth grade could, and they said, “No.” Then I asked if any of the others could, and a third grade girl held up her hand. I called her up, and she could add very well. I asked her where she learned, and she said her mother taught her. She was a bright girl, and I had hopes for her. But her mother died that winter and her father was no good, so she had no chance.

After finding the girls couldn’t add, I tried them in subtraction. They could not borrow; they did not know the multiplication table; they could not divide. So I took them back and taught them the fundamentals. We got to the sixth grade at the end of the term. After about two months of the second term I told the girls if they would finish the sixth grade and half the seventh grade by the end of the term I would promote them so they could get their diplomas next year. Ada spoke up (she was the one who would talk) and said, “We ought to, Mr. Randolph. We did the second, third, fourth, and fifth last year; so we ought to do the sixth and seventh this year,” and they did.

After I had finished giving the seventh grade their assignments, I called up the other grades to find the most of them wouldn’t talk and were way behind in their grades.

Among the first graders was a boy of 11 who sat with his sister of 13, a nice bright girl. He did not come up with the other children, so I went back and talked to him at his seat. The same thing happened each time I called the class that day. The next day after the class recited, I went back and told him he must come up and recite. When I took hold of him to lead him up to class, he grabbed his sister’s waist. If I had tried to pull him loose, I would have torn her waist off. I told him he must let loose, and his sister took his hands loose. I took him up and heard him recite. He never came up to recite with the class all winter. When I called the class he was in, he would sit still. After they recited, I would call him. He would look in every direction, taking long, high steps as if he expected something to get him.

This boy lived in a deep hollow away from any road and didn’t see anybody. In fact, most of the people lived off the road in the head of some hollow. When I told Brady that I had 59 pupils, he said it was impossible. He had been along all the roads up there, and there were no houses up there. Then he asked, “Where do they come from?” My answer was, “From the head of every hollow, from every red brush patch, and from every broom sedge patch.” I wondered for a while as to why they built in the heads of the hollows. Then I thought of the reason. It was to get water without digging wells. I think that living in the hollows and hardly ever seeing anyone had much to do with their being like scared rabbits.

There were several families who were so poor that the children seldom had any shoes to wear and never went to school in the winter-just a little while in the fall. Several of them gloried in saying, “I’m too poor to send my children to school.” Oh, how I would have liked to kick them soundly!

These are mountain people who are very loyal to their friends but are bitter enemies. They had but little education (some could neither read nor write) and had been having very poor schools. The patrons and children had no interest in school. No one had ever gotten an eighth grade diploma. No one had ever received a certificate for attendance nor a report card. So there was not much reason for them to be interested in school.

There had been some lively times up there. The county superintendent (Mr. Golden) told me he sent the nicest kind of a little girl up there, and they took her out and set her down in a mud hole. I asked him why they didn’t take me out and put me down in a mud hole. He said he didn’t know. I did; they got the idea that I would skin them alive. Then I got them interested in learning, and I treated them nice so they were my friends. In fact, only two families got mad at me. One of these men died the second winter I taught, and I had the friendship of the family the rest of the time. The other one said the third winter I taught that I was all right and he would carry a petition around for me to teach the next winter if someone would write it. So you see, I had the good will of everybody when I left.

As would be natural in a backwoods place like this, there were several who were dull and came to school but little, and I could not interest them in education. But there were many bright children there. I could never have made a success of this school if I had not gotten them interested not only in getting a diploma from the eighth grade but also in going ahead to high school. But more of this later,

One of the large girls had caused a lot of trouble in school in the past. In fact, one evening as soon as school was out, she jumped on another girl, broke her glasses and beat up on her. She made her say “Enough” twice so the teacher would be sure to hear her; the teacher was a young man and never did anything about it. This girl started to school the second month I taught. One day I saw her write a note and start to pass it. I went back where she sat and just held out my hand without saying a word. She looked at me, and I continued to hold out my hand. She put the note in it, and I went back to the desk. I never said a word about it, for it was just a joke; but she expected a whipping every day for weeks. She never gave a bit of trouble.

It was a cold winter with deep snows. The school is on a high hill, so there was no ice to skate on. The children would fix a slick place and slide on it. They would run into each other and fall in the snow and get wet and cold. I told them they must go one at a time and not pile up in the snow. They just wouldn’t pay attention, so I told them they must not slide any more.

When I went after coal in the evening, I found they had made a slide and had been sliding. I told them that the juvenile judge of Denver was telling about having a Snitching Bee (that is, they were to tell on themselves), and that I would give those who were sliding till school time next morning to come and tell me about it. One of the big boys said to his chum, “Shall we own up?” The other said, “We had just as well. He will find out any way.”

Another boy told me he didn’t skate but he helped some of the others. In a few minutes he came back and said, “I lied to you, teacher; I did skate.” I asked him why he lied, and he said he thought maybe he could get out of it but he had decided I would find out.

Some of them tried to get out by denying it, but there was too much evidence against them. So I told about six or eight of them that they could not play any for a given time. This made Burb Skidmore very angry, for he said they lied on his boys. He never forgave me, but after his death his wife and children were good friends of mine.

A couple of boys were out for four weeks with whooping cough. When they came back, they brought third readers instead of second readers. I told the boys that I could not promote them as I had not promoted those who had been there all the time. This made their father mad, and he kept the boys at home the rest of the school. Two years later he got in a good humor and was as good a friend as I had up there, for which I was very thankful.

After I had taught a few weeks, I saw that the children had no place to go. I proposed that we have a spelling race some night. Ada spoke up (she was the seventh grade girl who would talk) and said, “‘We can’t do it, Mr. Randolph. They would come here drunk and break it up.” “Oh, I reckon they wouldn’t,” I replied. “Yes, they would,” she said. Then I said very firmly, “No, they won’t, and we will have a spelling race,”-and we did. After that we could have a program, singing or anything without any interruption in the house.

The school house, as I have mentioned before, was no good. When the wind blew, it would heave the west wall in, and the wind would come howling in. There was a hole in the floor a 12-year-old girl could put her foot through. They promised to furnish flooring to put over the old one, but Sell Skidmore, secretary of the board, got them not to furnish it. I had a better plan, so I let it go and kept the children warm by staying by the fire a lot in cold weather. About the middle of the winter I proposed we get a new school house.

They said it was no use as they had tried several times. I told them we could not only get a house, but a two-room house. I drew up a petition with a space for them to give the number of children of school age and another one to put down the number under school age. There proved to be over 80 of school age and about 30 under age. So we got a new house with two rooms, but a very poor one.

They got up a petition for me to teach the next winter, and everyone signed it but the two I mentioned before. Several of the patrons went down and forced them to give it to me after part of the board tried to slip in another teacher.

My Last Summer in Salem: The spring of 1926 I went back to Salem and spent the summer there, which was the last time I spent any time to amount to anything in Salem. I can remember but little about that summer, what I did, who I worked for, or if I got much work. I only know that I spent the summer at Salem and went back to Poplar Ridge to teach that winter.

Back to Poplar Ridge School: We had two rooms, and Miss Edna Barker was my assistant. I met her first at the Teachers’ Institute, which I believe was our last institute. I found her a fine girl, a good teacher and nice to work with. We both boarded at Dave Hosey’s, where I boarded the first winter. Things went nicely this winter. We had a new family, the Halls, with two girls in the eighth grade. The girls both got diplomas, which were the first ever received there.

Debate over Supplementary Readers: This winter I had trouble with the board of education over supplementary readers. They claimed I was teaching them and neglecting the text books. My pupils signed a statement that I had not heard a single class in any books but the regular text books. They, the board, also claimed it cost the patrons too much to buy the extra books, so I told them I was paying for the books myself. When Brady handed in my reply, one of the board members said it was a lie, that he knew that I had been hearing classes in those wicked books. Brady told him he thought he should be careful about calling all the larger scholars liars. After thinking a minute he said, “Maybe it was the other teacher.” When Brady told them I was paying for the books, he said, “That’s a lie. He only paid the postage on them.” Brady replied, “Dad says he paid for them, and he did.” Then he said, “Maybe it was last year I was thinking about.’

Some of the children took the books home when school was out instead of giving them back to me. One of them offered to sell the one he kept to Miss Barker for 55 cents. She asked me if that was a fair price. I told her, “No.” When I found who had it, I told her it was my book and she could have it for 35 cents. (It cost 70 cents.) I told her to tell him I said it was my book, and I sold it to her. When I told the school I was going to buy the books and loan them to the third grade, Ada spoke right up and said, “Mr. Randolph, you are too smart for them after all.” Ada was a very fine girl and a great friend of mine.

We had a very fine program at Christmas time. I helped in several of them. Several of the parents and young folks out of school helped. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves very much.

They got up a petition, and everyone signed for me to teach again. This time there was no trouble about my getting the school.

Summer at Brady’s: This summer I spent at Brady’s. I took care of a 2400 egg incubator, raised 400 white leghorns, also a very fine pig and a half acre of potatoes. The potatoes were not a success. Although I sprayed them four times, they blighted before they matured. The pig was hard to beat. I also trap nested a flock of Rhode Island Reds. Ten of these laid over 200 eggs each, and one laid 242, which was very good at that time. One of the Red pullets laid her first egg at 4 months and 24 days. We had raised these Reds by the all-mash formula, which we found started them to laying before they were of proper size. So we never tried this play again.

The Next School Year at Poplar Ridge: Again Miss Barker and I boarded at Dave Hosey’s. I got along very well with them, but Miss Barker had a lot of trouble with them. I think they thought Charlie (their boy) was paying too much attention to her. She told me she thought of him as a kid brother. They went to a dance one night together, and Dave’s [family] never forgave her. They told the neighbor they would never board her again, but they would board me. Dave went to the board and got them not to hire her again.

We had two programs this year. The first was at Thanksgiving, and the second was at Christmas. The second was very good. Two of the patrons had growled about our having them, so we had the last one to show them we could. One of the growlers was an old man of about 72 who had 6 children in school. When I asked him how he liked it, he said, “It was fine, just fine.” He was just tickled skinny. So many people will rave about what they know nothing about and will make no effort to find out about.

This was my third winter on Poplar Ridge. This spring Ada and Gladys Hosey received eighth grade diplomas, but neither of these went to high school. Later I will give an account of several who not only went to high school but got their diplomas.