The room used was the large, unplastered living room of the farm house. The equipment was the same as that of the schools attended by fathers and mothers in the East, and of which we often read. In the center was a long desk at which the older pupils sat to do their writing,--not composition so much as copy-book work. This piece of school furniture had a narrow horizontal board in the middle to hold the ink bottles, and on each side of this and fastened to it were the sloping boards for the common long desk. On each side was a bench seat. Along the sides of the room, attached to the walls, were sloping boards, braced somehow, and adjusted in height to benches upon which the pupils sat for study, their books resting on the slanting shelf. Their backs were toward the middle of the room, and when called to the class for recitations, they flopped their feet over the bench and stood up. There was a piece of blackboard at the end of the room opposite the door.

Their first teacher was Margaret Gould, the stepdaughter of a Mr. Scott, an early settler and neighbor of my family. Miss Gould was a capable woman, ready to do many things besides teaching,--a regular "neighborhood blessing," who had helped many in time of need, including my mother. She has considerable education, and later followed teaching for many years in both Racine and Kenosha counties.

The education of Cordillo and Ida began in the regular way,--that is, with the learning of their letters. It was a long time after that, when it was discovered that the names of the letters have little to do with word recognition; but at that time to have postponed that step, as is done today, would have been regarded as an act of pedagogical heresy, and an evidence of unfitness in the teacher. Ida recalls the names of some of the pupils, and some of the happenings on the playground. She not only learned the names of the characters in the alphabet, but was able to spell the word "it" at the end of the term. It was, however, regarded as a successful experience, for the teacher was kind-hearted, and understood children. A favorable first impression of school was made.

In 1851 a public schoolhouse was built on the east and west road between sections 12 and 13. It was located on the south side of a farm then owned by a Mr. Pritchard, and afterwards by Henrry Midllecamp. It stood in a grove of bur oak trees, some of which must still be there since today the school has the name of the "Three Oaks School." It was built by Mr. Scott and his son Oliver. The logs for the foundation were cut from the roadside of Mr. Scott's farm and my father's oxen hauled them to the school site--more than a mile away. Ida recalls how during the summer when the school was under construction, she and Cordillo and Frances Scott walked every day to the new building to carry dinners to the workmen.

It was a frame structure of the usual size and form, and stood near the road facing south, just where it does now. To keep the pupils from looking out of the windows when "their eyes should be on their books," the windows were placed so high that only the teacher and the taller children when standing could see out, evidently a common building practice.1 In the middle of the room not far from the door stood the large, quadrangular box stove. At the opposite end of the room upon a small platform was the teacher's desk. Near the ceiling, stretching from the stove to the chimney back of the teacher's desk was the stovepipe, which in the winter furnished the assurance of warm heads, at least. It was, I believe, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes who said that it was a good sign when a writer's feet got cold. So there is this classical sanction for the condition that usually prevailed in that school room in winter.

There were three rows of desks, and Mr. Scott, a skillful carpenter, had fashioned good ones, with comfortable backs, and shelves for the books. The middle row was designed for the smaller children, and each seat would accommodate three or four of them. On each side of this middle row, separated by a narrow aisle, were seats for the older children, each designed for two, the boys sitting on one side of the room and the girls on the other. A well remembered form of punishment was to make a troublesome boy cross over and sit with a girl. Whether or not this served its purpose depended entirely on the nature of the boy, and sometimes it was not the boy but the girl who was punished.

Across the entire end of the room behind the teacher's desk was a blackboard,--literally that. In the front of the room, at the left of the door, was a bench for the water pail. The coats, cloaks, shawls, hoods, and caps were hung on nails at that end of the room, the girls using the right side and the boys the left, in proximity to the open water pail. Curtains or shades there were none.

One who as a child attended this school visited it recently. She noticed, first, that the window sills had been lowered; that modern desks had replaced the old ones, and that slate blackboards and curtains had been added to the school facilities. The house built seventy-nine years ago is still in good condition.

This school was opened in the fall of 1851. By this time, twelve years after A. J. Davison had bought his land of the government, the district was well settle. Before proceeding with the school history, I will name as many as can be recalled by my sister of the families who belonged in District No. 5. The exact chronology of their settlement in the district is not attempted in all cases, "earlier" or "later" expressing all that is believed or known about this matter.

Among the first settlers who sent children to school in the early fifties occur such family names as Gregory, Vaughn, Willis, Lease, Allen, Fleming, Baker, Bailey, Hale, Stover, McHuron, which names seem to indicate Yankee stock. A number of these sold out after a few years, usually to foreigners, and moved away, probably following the westward movement. Among these new families were those of German, Dutch, Bohemian, Welsh, and Irish origin.

On the farm adjoining the Willis farm on the south lived the Hale family. Obadiah Peace Hale and his wife were natives of Ohio who came to Wisconsin in 1842. Mr. Hale, a lawyer by profession, was justice of the peace for many years. He and my father were very close friends. Although he was not a great success as a farmer, Mr. Hale and his family were important factors in the neighborhood. I remember him always as somewhat stooped. My father used to attribute this to his posture in sitting. When at home he sat with his chair tipped back and his feet on his desk; when calling on a neighbor, he sat similarly tilted against the wall with one heel clutched on the front round of the chair and the other leg crossed over the knee thus elevated. In this attitude he seemed rightly posed to discuss the politics of the day, or some neighborhood event.

The family consisted of four children, the three oldest born in Ohio. They were Melvina, born in 1832, who married George Palmer; Delina, born in 1833, who married Courtland A. Dewey, and became well-known in Kenosha; George, born in 1840, and Myron, born in 1845. George Hale enlisted for the Civil War, August 12, 1862, in Company H, Thirty-third Wisconsin Infantry. He was a lieutenant in this company during its participation in the siege of Vicksburg, and his diary of that event is an interesting document. He was known to us in Kenosha as Captain Hale, and was for many years a prominent citizen and member of the G. A. R. His death occurred n October 24, 1911. Myron as a youth of twenty enlisted as one of the "Hundred Day Boys." He contracted typhoid fever and died September 27, 1865, the day after reaching home.

Another much valued neighbor was Patrick maceldowney--a name soon shortened to Downey. Mr. Downey had studied in Ireland for the priesthood, and was a real scholar, versed in the Greek, Hebrew and Latin languages. All he is remembered as having said in explanation of his change of plan was that when the time came for ordination (if this is the right word) he refused "holy orders." Mrs. Downey was a woman of refinement, beautiful in appearance and character. They had three sons, John, Henry, and Barney, and in the family besides these were Katherine McNeil, a niece of Mr. Downey, and two granddaughters of Mrs. Downey, children of a daughter by a previous marriage, named Mary and Elizabeth Stewart. They came to Wisconsin from the East, where Mr. Downey had been a linen peddler.

After the war, in 1866 or '67, this family left the neighborhood and moved to a new home in the forest of northern Wisconsin, not far from Appleton. I remember well their day of departure, greatly impressed by the sadness of my parents over the loss of these much loved neighbors,--bound to them by the ties of friendship, strengthened by common sorrows and reciprocated helpfulness in times of need.

In the spring of 1876, when I was a student at the Oshkosh Normal School, my brother William came for me in vacation time and took me to visit the Downeys. We found them living in a comfortable log house. Henry, unmarried, worked the farm and Mary Stewart kept the house. John was settled in Appleton. Mrs. Downey, still sweet and interesting, was a suffering invalid; and Mr. Downey, at an advanced age, exemplifying the life-long habits of the student, was occupying himself with the study of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. He discussed with us interesting discoveries in English etymology.

To the north lived the Carl Kreucher family, mentioned in my first chapter. The older sons born in Germany soon became Americanized. Charles and Philip went to Beatrice, Nebraska. A son of the latter is now noted surgeon in the Mercy Hospital in Chicago. Other descendents are prosperous residents of Nebraska. Peter was wounded at the battle of Gettysburg and died from the effects of delay in his rescue. John, a younger brother, Philopena, known as "Penie," and Maggie went to the school in District No. 5.

Carl Kreucher prospered. He was a devoted Lutheran and in the late sixties gave the land for a church of that denomination. The location was the northeast corner of the farm he bought from my father in 1854. A church and parsonage were built there and are in use today. West of this property in a pasture can be seen the depression in the ground marking the place of the cellar of the Davison frame house, and in the northwest corner of that farm, on an elevation overlooking the low land already mentioned, is the parish cemetery.

The settlers on the east side of the road opposite the first farm were named McHuron, who sold out to a new arrival from Holland named Van der Meuhlen,--now shortened to Vandermoon. The latter are remembered as a somewhat superior family in education and refinement. The father, William Van der Meuhlen, is recalled by the paintings of Dutch artists; the mother was a descendant of a French Huguenot. They had one son, Albert, who married and lived on the old place. Their only daughter, Henrietta, married Henry Middlecamp, who settled on a farm adjoining that on the Vandermoon;s on the south. Henry Middlecamp, also a Dutch immigrant, is remembered as an honest, good hearted, although rather uncultured man,--a good neighbor and faithful friend. One of the sons, William, now deceased, attended the Kenosha High School and the Oshkosh Normal School, and was for a number of years the county superintendent of schools of Kenosha County. The other children were Ida, Annie, Etta, Andrew, and Albert. The somewhat unusual name appears in the telephone directory of Kenosha, these being probably the descendants of Henry and Henrietta Middlecamp.

In this connection I will relate an incident that seems to have some historical interest. When gold was discovered in Colorado on the banks of the Platte River in 1858, the rush to that place was almost as great at that to California had been ten years before, or that to the Klondike in 1897. Then in 1859, Pike's Peak, near Denver, had a gold excitement all its own, and "Pike's Peak or Bust" was painted on many a prairie schooner westward bound to the new Eldorado. Neighbor Middlecamp caught the "gold fever," and decided to go West to make his fortune. His companion in this venture was Gerry Meyers, son of Jacob Meyers, an early German settler in Paris. (The daughter and grandchildren of Gerry Meyers are well known in the business and social life of Kenosha today.)

To make the trip, they bought a light wagon of the Mitchell wagon makers of Racine. It was equipped with a canvas cover in regular prairie schooner style. It had a comfortable spring seat which promised easier riding on the trek of upwards of a thousand miles to their Colorado destination. Whether or not it, too, was labeled "Pike's Peak or Bust" I cannot say; but with necessary supplies and a good team of horses, the two hopeful men started West sometime in 1859.

After a lapse of time the neighborhood was surprised by the return of the adventurers. They related that after having travelled for weeks and finally having crossed the boundary of Colorado, they began to meet many people coming back. These disillusioned and discouraged gold seekers told such dismal tales of their experiences at Pike's Peak that Middlecamp and Meyers decided not to go farther, and turned back toward Wisconsin and home. Although they may not have advertised their financial condition by decorating the side of their wagon as many similarly situated did, with the word "Busted," that word expressed the condition of our neighbors, and the wagon was immediately offered for sale. My father was the purchaser.

At a time when heavy lumber wagons were the usual vehicle of travel, this lighter wagon, horse drawn, was quite an acquisition,--as great as that of an automobile for a farmer a half-century later. This vehicle, on account of its history, was called the "Pike's Peak wagon," or simply the "Pike's Peak." It became a common neighborhood utility. Although too young to remember the event of its purchase, I recall distinctly how some adult or child would come to the house and say "Father would like to borrow the Pike's Peak to go to town tomorrow." The applicant was very apt to get the wagon from my generous, accommodating father, unless other plans for its use had been very definitely made. It was as popular as my mother's shining brass kettle at preserving time, or Mrs. Hale's tall spinning wheel at other times of need. Even the horses seemed to appreciate it, and would "pep up," and take on a smarter pace with the easy going "Pike's Peak" at their heel.

Just as a little child, in the perception stage of its development, familiar with a dog called Fido, calls other similar dogs by this name, so I, in my early years called all wagons of similar appearance "Pike's Peak," especially if they were painted light green, and was about to exclaim, so I am told, "O, see that Pike's Peak!" greatly to the amusement of my elders.

How many baskets of eggs and jars of butter and crates of chickens that wagon brought to Kenosha over the Burlington Road, or to Racine, if that market were preferred! How many loads it brought back to our own or to neighbors' homes, of groceries and other household necessities! Later I will tell of an educational event in which it figured.

Other families in the district living on the road one mile to the east,--the Town Line Road between Paris and Somers,--were those of Elisha Baker, and Norman Bailey, a brother-in-law of the former. They came from Cayuga County, New York. A bond existed between my father and Elisha Baker since they were the only Whigs in the Town of Paris before the Republican Party was formed. A son of Elisha Baker born in "York" state was Myron A. Baker, well remembered in Kenosha as Judge Baker. He served in the Civil War in 1861 being one of the first volunteers in Wisconsin. One of his sons, Norman L. Baker, is now assistant council for the Northwestern Mutual Life of Milwaukee, and another, Robert Verne Baker, of Kenosha, is now the county judge. A daughter of Elisha Baker, Frances Abigail, afterwards Mrs. Frank Dunning * (Mrs. Dunning died, at the age of 91, in Evanston, Ill., on July 5, 1932.), gave early promise of literary ability and was a frequent contributor to the local and other papers. Always fond of little children, she conducted, in Kenosha, the first kindergarten in this part of Wisconsin. It was operating in the decades of the seventies and later.

On the east side of the district lived Joseph Huck and Henry Biehn, Germans, who bought out the first settlers, and whose large families got their schooling in District No. 5. In their vicinity lived the Heidersdorfs and Snells. To the south in the district lived Jacob Kreucher, a nephew of Carl, who came in 1857. To the west, back of other farms, not reached by the road, were the Lucas family, Welsh, and two Irish families named Martin and Maroney. Their farms bordered on the "big marsh" and were not all arable. I have often wondered if we had in these, other instances of the "Martin Chuzzlewit" sort. All these last mentioned succeeded the first settlers on their respective farms.

Of this great variety of nationalities and of social and educational background, consisted at an earlier or later period, the patrons of the school of District No. 5, Paris, which as I have already said, was opened in the fall of 1851.

The usual plan followed in the first decade of the school's history was to have a man teacher for the winter term, when the big boys attended, and a woman for the summer term. The district system of supervision had been superseded in Wisconsin in 1848 by that of a town superintendent. While this was a great improvement over the previous arrangement, the effectiveness of it depended, of course, upon the man who was elected to that office at the town meeting. Paris was very fortunate in having as its superintendent of schools, Dr. Ammon Adams of Union Grove, who served for quite a number of years, and of whom more will be related later.

The teacher engaged for the winter of 1851-52 was Woolsey Washburn, who opened the school in the new building. Cordillo Davison attended regularly, and Ida, aged five, went during the fall and in winter when weather permitted.

In the summer of 1852, the teacher was Frances Bennett. She was one of the older children of a family of sixteen, and the account of how she was discovered and became the teacher in District No. 5 was thus given by father, then the clerk of the district. Father was one day on his way to Kenosha, when he saw a lot of children of different sizes coming out of a farmhouse door. He remarked to the man beside him, who had gladly accepted an invitation to ride, that there must be a school in that house, and was informed that all the children belonged to one family, but that they did constitute a school. It was necessary under the Wisconsin law for children to go to school, and since there was no schoolhouse, and no other pupils in the district, the Bennett home became the schoolhouse and the district paid the teacher.

A teacher was needed for District No. 5. Father, thinking that the experience of an older sister in this large family was a good preparation for handling other people's children, and finding Frances an intelligent, well-mannered girl, offered her the school. She was examined by the town superintendent and, according to the standard of the time, found satisfactory equipped for the work of teaching little children.

In the following winter, that of 1852-53, the teacher was Henry Pettit of Kenosha. He was the son of Judge J. J. Pettit, one of Kenosha's early settlers, and is remembered as a good teacher,--a young man of interesting personality and fine influence. The school of about forty pupils was orderly and successfully. There were now three Davison children in school, William aged four years, having, just started. The school was more than a mile away, and in bad weather the oxen and sled took them to school. Other children were picked up along the way and helped through the drifts.

Mr. Pettit was an artist of exceptional ability and served as a cartoonist during the Civil War. I remember that when I attended the Kenosha High School in the seventies, his two young daughters were my schoolmates. Their father had died and they lived with the grandfather, Judge Pettit.

For the summer term of 1853, Sarah Spades, a high school girl from Kenosha, was the teacher in District No. 5. Her immaturity, and perhaps her character, are revealed by an incident which adds a touch to the picture of that school period. Water for drinking had to be brought in a wooden pail either from the Downey well to the west or the Biehn well to the east. To "go after the water" was an eagerly sought privilege, and since the distance to the Biehn place was the greater, that well was favored. It took two pupils to bring the pailful, and no one ever complained of the arduousness of the task, even though the pail was large and the way hot and dusty. The pail, full to the brim at the well curb, was not always borne with steadiness and it often happened that when it reached the school house, half of it had slopped out, and the rest was warm. It is remembered by Ida, who was a thirsty onlooker, that Miss Spaded would fill a pitcher for her own use, leaving scarcely enough to wet the parched throats of the children. As they watched her drink from her private supply, their thirst waxed greater, as did their hatred when she firmly forbade the fetching of another pail of water.

"The evil that men do lives after them"; her "bones" may be "interred" in a deep, soft bed of good deeds, but Miss Spades is remembered for this unsympathetic, selfish performance. Besides bearing an implied warning and moral, this story illustrates the far cry from then to now in the matter of sanitation. There the wooden pail, rinsed, but seldom scrubbed and cleaned, stood open in an unventilated, dusty schoolroom; the dipper or cup, passed from mouth to mouth, was refilled by dipping it into the pail!

In the winter of 1853--54, the teacher for the four--months' school was George Milligan, a medical student who was earning money to go on with his professional preparation. As he knew something about medicine, the neighbors would sometimes send for him in emergencies. He would go, leaving Mary Vaughn, an older pupil, in charge of the school. Mr. Milligan was of gentlemanly appearance, of slender build, but trained and alert. There were forty pupils in the attendance that winter. A story is told illustrating the difficulties in the way of discipline facing teachers in the winter terms of those days, and also showing that school--teachers of the "Hoosier School Master" type were not confirmed to Indians.

Two big boys named Gus Vaughn and Grove Willis, aged fifteen or sixteen, entered school after the fall work was done. They were not interested in school and seemed bent on making trouble. Since "to throw the schoolmaster out" was considered by the hoodlum element as something to boast of, these boys proceeded deliberately to provoke the teacher to some act of authority, when they would immediately precipitate a fight. Weighing Mr. Milligan's small, slight stature against the brawn, the boys felt confident of the outcome.

One day, for an especially offensive act, the teacher reprimanded the Willis boy and told him to leave the room. His confederate, Gus Vaughn, immediately jumped from his seat, seized the "dry bone" stick used for a stove poker, and assumed a threatening attitude towards the teacher. The little children in the middle row were frightened by seeing the teacher dash from his platform, quickly step from desk to desk over their heads and seize from the floor the hooked iron stove poker. Thus armed, he opened the door and told the smaller children to go out. The older children staid in the room, crowding the aisles next the walls on either side. It seemed to those out of doors shivering from cold and fright, Cordillo and Ida among them, that the commotion within continued for a long time. Finally the door opened, and they saw two big boys emerge and walk quietly away. The little schoolmaster had proved himself more than a match for them and for one or two others who came to their support.

Mr. Milligan immediately began legal action against the disturbers. My father and the two other members of the district school board were called the next morning to Squire Hale's for the hearing of the case. Some of the older pupils who had seen the fight were called in as witnesses. The boys were expelled, and the winter term of 1853--1854 in District No. 5, Town of Paris, continued peacefully and successfully to its close. How about the boy disturbers? "They became the toughs of the neighborhood" so my narrator says. She, then seven years of age, recalls these as attending that term: three Fleming boys, --Homer, Tom and Burdett. Tom won a reputation for great daring in the Civil War, became a captain and was killed "under the guns at Fort Hudson." Among the girls remembered were Addie Baker, Mary and Phoebe Vaughn, Katherine McNeil, Harriet and Ophelia Gregory and Martha Lease. The first named, Frances Adelaide Baker, had already been mentioned in the paragraph about the family of Elisha Baker.

In the summer of 1854, Carrie Rector taught the school. She was considered so excellent a teacher that at the end of the term she was offered the school for the next summer.

The man taught the following winter term, 1854-55, was Cyrus Brande, a severe disciplinarian, but considered just. He was an Englishman by birth, well educated, and the school was success. He was the first teacher to send a report to parents. It consisted of a printed form and included four items: "Punctuality," "Obedience," "Diligence," and "Scholarship." S. Y. Brande, a brother of Cyrus, was a prominent citizen of Kenosha, and carried on a real estate business for many years.

In the summer of 1855, the teacher was Marcia Holbrook, a country girl of little experience. Her term is remembered, and the date established by three things: Hannah, aged four years, began school, and encountered great difficulties in learning her letters, the letter "u" being an especial stumbling block. The teacher, pointing to the letter said "that's u." When the child was called upon to repeat its name, she persisted in saying "me" The second thing remembered is the severe whipping of William, aged seven, for a childish offense which would be passed over today. The third thing was that mother made trip to Chautauqua County, New York, to visit her parents, leaving an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Judd, in charge of her family.

When mother went East, she took the state from Kenosha to Chicago. The Chicago and Northwestern Railway was under construction, but an unfinished section somewhere between Chicago and Milwaukee prevented its use for through traffic. Since, according to the history of railroad expansion, Chicago had been reached by rail from the east since 1852, she undoubtedly proceeded on her journey from Chicago over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern route. By the time she returned trains were running from Chicago to Milwaukee or farther, and the older children of the family were looking forward to an opportunity to see this new and wonderful sight of which they had heard so much. Mother's return offered such an opportunity, and father had promised them the ride to town. A letter had told the time when mother would start, and when she expected to arrive. But she had not reckoned on the speed of these new modes of travel, and the facilities for making connections. So coming right on, she arrived in Kenosha ahead of the time when she was expected, and finding a neighbor in town, had come home with him, to find her family about ready to start out. Her welcome from the children was anything but cordial. Later she would laugh when telling of her lugubrious welcome, but at the time it happened it was rather disappointing to find four vexed children filled with a sense of injustice done them by her too early arrival.

A man named Eliphalet Pope was the teacher during the winter term of 1855-56. As far as scholarship went, he qualified for the work, but he had on several occasions displayed an ungovernable temper, and must have been an emotionally unbalanced man. However, he created a favorable impression at the close of the term by putting on a great "Exhibition." There was a stage in the little school room, and curtains--mother's bed curtains,--and a Spanish play, Retribution, was given. It made such a deep impression of Ida that she can remember the actors and recall some of the dialogue. This was probably the first dramatic performance witnessed by this girl of nine years of age. It pleased the district so much that Mr. Pope was then and there hired for the next winter,--an act with which my father was not entirely in accord.

The summer of 1856 brought Ann Jordan as teacher, who left a reputation for success. Then Eliphalet Pope returned. There occurred that winter a school event which i will relate in detail, because it illustrates what children were subjected to by teachers, and enables us to measure the progress since made in the rational regard for children's rights, and in thought given by parents to the question of the personality of those placed in charge of schools.

One winter's day during Mr. Pope's second term, father and mother were away on business. It was the last day of December, 1856, and the last day before the holiday vacation. Ida staid away from school to look after Carrie and the baby (myself) and to have general charge of things. Father had told Cordillo, my elder brother, then about twelve years old, to go home from school at noon to feed the cattle and to open the water holes in the ice in the pond so that they might drink. But that noon a battle was fought in and about a snow fort in the school yard, and the boy, completely absorbed in the sport, forgot about duty at home until school was called. Mr. Pope then refused him permission to go, but at the afternoon recess Cordillo left for home, by that time thoroughly worried about his neglect. An older boy was immediately sent after him. Cordillo who, when the boy arrived, had not yet had time to do the chores assigned him, refused to return to school, and the threat was conveyed to him that "teacher said he would be whipped if he didn't." Irritated by the important air of the messenger, an impudent remark was made by Cordillo, which with some embellishments, was of course carried back to Mr. Pope. Soon the children in the home were scared to see the angry teacher approaching. Hannah, a child of five, climbed in a chair and bolted the door; but it was unbolted by Cordillo when the teacher arrived, the boy saying to his frightened brother and sisters that the teacher could not touch him when he was in his home. But while he protested to the teacher that he must do the work assigned him by his father, he was forcibly seized and dragged away by the angry man. On the way back to school Mr. Pope cut some hazel-bush rods, leaving stubs on them where he trimmed off the branches.

Upon reaching school, he stripped off the boy's coat and vest and beat him until his dark blue woolen shirt was in tatters, and the blood oozed from the holes in the skin made by the sharp stubs, and ran down his back. Pale and suffering he came home, with only a little sister to do for him what she could.

Upon the return of the parents, they found a sad situation,--Cordillo bent over beside the kitchen stove, bleeding and sore, his brother and younger sisters sobbing in sympathy, and Ida in the act of bathing the wounds. The effect upon the mother exemplifies what has been said about the "female of the species" and probably had she been allowed to reach Mr. Pope at his boarding place about a mile away, as she declared she would do, his plight would have been even worse than that of his pupil. But the calm judgment of father prevailed. He knew that a serious offense had been committed and that recourse to law was the only procedure. Quieting mother with this explanation, he went immediately to Squire Hale's, got a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Pope and rode on a short distance to the home of the constable, Albert Stover. He directed the officer to serve the warrant at once, as it was known that the teacher expected to leave that night for his home in Pleasant Prairie. The young constable was not at all loathe to exercise his authority and in a very short time was galloping off to Mr. Pope's boarding house, where he made the arrest, and forbade him to leave the district.

There was great excitement throughout the neighborhood. Men gathered on that New Year's morning at the home of Squire Hale to hear the trial. There the teacher was brought to realize that by entering a home and forcibly taking away a child for punishment, he had committed a state prison offense. When the law was read, his indifference and bravado gave way immediately. On his knees the culprit teacher begged for mercy. He pled with father not to have him sent to prison and thus ruin his life. Father showed mercy and did not prosecute the case. Mr. Pope was allowed to go his way after paying the costs. But there was an effect which any amount of money, or a term in prison could not make right,--the effect of such brutal treatment upon a sensitive, rather delicate child. Mother often declared that Cordillo never got over it--"was never quite the same after it." Mr. Pope later was sent to jail in Kenosha for whipping a girl in the Pike Woods school, where he taught. After that he was not allowed to teach in Kenosha County, and left for Iowa, where it was said, he died in an insane asylum.

The two following winters brought a school condition that somewhat balanced up the previous disastrous one. The teacher was Joseph Geary, a young man of exceptional ability and high character. He was earning his way through Oberlin College and he brought to that district a never-to-be-forgotten educational experience. The district board, my father again clerk, had the good judgment to secure his services for the following winter. The winter terms of 1857-58 and 1858-59 seem to have been the crowning achievement of the district. The reputation of the teacher brought to the school several serious minded, ambitious, older students.

It may be stated here that Joseph Geary after his graduation from Oberlin became a member of the faculty of Ripon College, where he served many years, loved and respected by succeeding classes of students, who profited from contact with this exceptional personality. A lasting friendship with my father dated from those terms of teaching in District No. 5, and I well remember Professor Geary's occasional visits to our home.

It was in the summer between these two winter terms that I started to go to school. I was two years old in January of that year and was Ida's special charge. Mother, unable to get help, had all she could do to attend to the necessary household duties; and since I needed care, Ida had the choice of either staying at home and losing school or of taking me to school with her. I was referred to as "Ida's baby." Various stories are told of the happenings. When I got sleepy, a bed of cloaks was made for me on a rear bench. When I awakened from my nap, I would quietly slip into a seat beside a favorite boy or girl who accepted this attention without seeming objection. Fortunately for me, the windows were open, it being summer. In this day when psychiatrists attach so much importance to early impressions and experiences in their efforts to explain adult peculiarities, I often wonder in what way I would now be different in my personality if I hadn't gone to that infant school, or, better, had not been an infant in a school. From all I can learn, I was quite a regular attendant at school from that time on. This was not because my parents, as is sometimes the case, were ambitious to demonstrate possible precocity in a child, but for the simple reason that home conditions made it necessary if Ida were to receive the schooling she so much desired.

An opportunity for schooling in Chicago now came to Ida, and on October 1, 1859, she went there to live in the family of Uncle Frank Davison,--the Captain B. F. Davison already mentioned, who had ceased "following the Lake" and was engaged in Chicago in a very lucrative business on South Water Street, that of ship chandler. Ida had a hard time in that Chicago "grammar school." Although ambitious, bright and willing, the irregularity of her country schooling counted against her; she became discouraged, and came home at the end of the term. At the opening of the new year, 1860, she entered the district school, then taught by Edwin Cooley, who was considered a very good teacher,--well prepared and of excellent influence. This young man enlisted in 1862 and died of disease contracted in the service.

All the teachers in District No. 5 in the decade of the fifties have not been mentioned. Esther Shepherd, a summer term teacher, is remembered; also Mary Harris, and Katherine McNeil, a friend of the family, who was probably in charge in the summer of 1858 when the infant started in.

In the next chapter, the story of the decade of the sixties will be told, when changes in school administration became operative, and when reminiscences of great national events show how the neighborhood of District No. 5, Paris, reacted to new conditions.

1 See "Robert Fargo--An Autobiography" in Wisconsin Magazine of History, x, 190.