THE RURAL SCHOOL FROM WITHIN CHAPTER I LIVING UP TO REPUTATION I FIND it impossible to read the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" without my mind's going back twenty-five years to a sheltered nook known as Constad's Crossing on one of the important tributaries of the Kaw. In this neighborhood, fifteen miles from a town, I taught my first school. The schoolhouse was located on the banks of the heavily wooded stream, and established the center of a circular valley which was bounded on the north, west, and south by high hills, opening at the north and south for the inflowing and outflowing of Big Indian Creek. My qualifications were none too good, and as the school enrolled from sixty to seventy-five pupils, and as I was barely twenty years old, it was a matter of some surprise at first that I had been given the position. It dawned on me after it was too late to withdraw that I had landed a job that no one else wanted; that I had been the only applicant, notwithstanding the fact that teachers were plentiful. I later dis covered, or heard, that our good county superintendent (over whose bones the mossy marble has been standing for many years) had intentionally steered me that way with the fond hope that he might give me "mine." This he did in payment for the dog's life he had endured a few years previous when he was trying to save for the good of America an aggregation of Brom Boneses and Bud Meanses, whom as he often said, he would have gathered under his wings as a hen would her chickens-but they would not. Yes, when too late, I found all this out. A half mile from the school was my boarding place. How vividly do I remember the Saturday afternoon before the "First Monday in September" when I went to the home of Father and Mother Rose to board! The hills were then throwing their shadows over and far beyond the house, the hollyhocks were all abloom, and everything was quiet. Neither of the old people rose to greet me, but from their rockers in the vine-clad porch they smiled and bade me a welcome that meant more than have all the attentions of the uniformed attendants who infest the modern hostelries and rush for my baggage. I inquired for a drink, and was informed that unless the spring had quit, I would have no difficulty in quenching my thirst. It was no journey down a hill to the spring. Just beyond the kitchen door stood the springhouse. And such a spring! The volume of water was such that enough power might have been generated from it to do all the grinding, churning and washing on any farm in Kansas and also furnish drink for thousands of cattle. For weeks this great spring was sweetly singing to me as I dropped off to sleep. About five o'clock I went to the schoolhouse to see that all was in readiness, and found there two of the neighborhood women "sweeping out." The house did not meet my expectations, but it was satisfying to feel that there were at least two people in that community who were interested in education and who had a community interest. I thought it but proper that I should lend a hand, and was soon busily engaged in scraping and digging at questionable accretions to the floor. Between our working and talking I was informed that the house had not been really cleaned since last quarterly meeting, and as to-morrow was quarterly meeting day, it was thought best to give it a scrubbing. Then I knew the ablutions were not in honor of the new teacher nor of the cause which he was expecting to promote. I learned later, and to my surprise, that all religious denominations had free use of the schoolhouse, and, excepting during vacation, the teacher was janitor ex-officio. I had read in books on teaching of how the new teacher should make a careful survey of the premises, |