In the summer of 1860 an event occurred which left an impression on my memory, I being then in my fifth year. It was a Fourth of July celebration at Kellogg's Corners. Beyond the bare recollection of this event, all details have been supplied by Ida Davison, my eldest sister, then nearly fourteen years old. In previous accounts I have mentioned my obligation to her for much that has been told of these early years.

Into the relating of this event was usually brought an associated experience which my parents frequently recalled. The Fourth that year, 1860, fell on Sunday. On the night before, there was a severe frost. In the morning, when father looked out upon his field of growing corn, there were no green rows to be seen; there were only limp, blackened leaves. Thinking his crop destroyed, he immediaely set himself to the task of getting seed ready for replanting. Mother's occupation that day, despite its being Sunday, was the completion of three dresses for her girls, Ida, Hannah, and Carrie, who were anticipating the coming celebration, and were far more interested in mother's work than in the crop disaster. This sewing had to be done by hand, for as yet a sewing machine was not a part of the household equipment.

Before leaving this incident of the frost and proceeding with the story announced, let me say that the sprouting corn had not been killed, the terminal buds were safe; and before father was ready to do the replanting, green sprouts began to appear in the rows, and his worry on that score ended. Moreover, as if to make amends for the weather behavior in the spring, the frost held off that fall, and the crop was unusually large.

The Fourth of July celebration, which I started to tell about, occurred on Monday, the fifth. It will be remembered that 1860 was a time when the entire country was stirred up over the slavery question. In this prevailing excitement and interest, political and patriotic, the people of Racine and Kenosha counties were, of course, deeply involved. So it was planned that the four contiguous townships of Mount Pleasant and Yorkville in Racine County, and Paris and Somers in Kenosha County should come together at Kellogg's Corners, a centrally located place, for a great patriotic demonstration.

All the schools of the four towns had been invited, and an assemblage estimated at 5,000 men, women and children resulted. The Davison family wagon, the "Pike's Peak" described in a previous article, is said to have conveyed twenty-one to that celebration. Besides the entire family, there were crowded into it as many children of the neighborhood as it would possibly hold. The grown-ups occupied the seats, and the children sat on laps and on boards across the wagon-box, while those who could not find a seat stood up. Somewhere in the crowd was the writer, then four and one-half years old.

With the same spirit shown on similar occasions today, the school groups came, many of them in especially decorated wagons and bearing their own banners. A prize had been offered for the best banner, and there was consequently much excitement among the school children concerning the award. When it went to the school in Union Grove, taught by Joseph Geary, their beloved teacher for the two previous winters (to whose work and influence I have paid tribute in a previous chapter), the children and parents of District No. 5, Paris, were entirely reconciled to their failure.

There was a picnic dinner, and singing and oratory. Nothing is remembered about a brass band. The subjects of the speeches are not remembered, but can be conjectured with a fair degree of probability. A brief review of the political situation shows us that at that time the Democratic party had been split in two, the North and the South each having its presidential candidate. The Republicans had nominated Lincoln at their Chicago Convention in May. The great battle of the ballots would come off on November 6. It is remembered by those old enough to recall it, that on this occasion there was manifested intense patriotic feeling. While, without doubt, there mingled in this crowd those with personal political aspirations, centered on a local or a state office, the chief topic of conversation pertained to national affairs. The people realized that the agitation over slavery had reached a dangerous stage, and the strong northern sectional attitude on this question found free expression. The Kansas troubles, the Dred Scott decision, the John Brown tragedy were recent occurrences. Some believed that Lincoln, others that Douglas, was the man to save the Union.

While younger children were having a happy time in the grove, the men and women about the speakers' stand looked very grave. War between the North and South was mentioned and their listeners knew what war would mean. In that company were many young men who responded to Lincoln's first call made on April 15, 1861, and boys who went later on. Among the former were Peter Kreucher, who was shot on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg and died before his brother could reach him; Myron Baker, already mentioned in connection with his family in a previous chapter, who is said to have been the third Wisconsin man to enlist; and Clark Stover, the town constable previously mentioned. Some of the Paris boys enlisted in the Thirty-third Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and of them these names are remembered: George Hale, Edwin Cooley, John Gray, Fred Taylor, Asa Harris, and Norman Johnson. Others, all of German origin, joined the Twenty-sixth Regiment "to fight with Franz Sigel." There were among these Peter Kreucher, mentioned above, Peter Henche, Peter Weber, Peter Hoffman, Krist Miller, and others.

Men school teachers were scarce in 1861. For the first time in the history of the district, a woman was hired for the winter term of 1861-62. She was Helen Perkins, well educated, and a teacher of experience. It was said that there was only one of superior scholastic attainment in Kenosha County, and that was Hosea Barnes, prominent in educational work. Miss Perkins was a graduate of Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. Dr. Merrick, a relative on her mother's side, was then the president of that university. Her father, Ephriam Perkins, lived in Paris on the Burlington Road. He was a brother of Pliny M. Perkins, the founder of Burlington, Racine County, who built, owned, and operated the flour mill and the woolen mill in Burlington. To be near her father, who was aging, Helen came to Kenosha County and taught a country school.

She was a progressive teacher, always studying new methods. When she came to District No. 5, her latest interest was centered in a new method of teaching beginning reading--the phonetic method. Although, as previously stated, I had at this time been "going to school" since I was two and a half years and was now past five years of age, I had not learned to read; that is, the ability to discriminate words had not been acquired, although I could repeat by rote the primer from beginning to end. Miss Perkins decided to try out her newly discovered method on me, I being the first upon whom she had experimented. She has told me that she felt satisfied with the progress I made, but thought that she might have done better by me if she had not had so many pupils and so many subjects. But her successors not knowing about the phonetic method, the effects of her teaching were soon lost from lack of application. It is probable that I was put back upon the regular, orthodox pedagogical route of learning the names of the letters and left to work out for myself, unwittingly, my own phonetic associations; that is, to somehow come to realize that the rigmarole "see-ay-tee" spelled "cat," and "el-double-oh-kay" spelled "look." Anyhow, I know that at eight or nine years of age I was not able to read with the facility of children now in their second school year, who have been skillfully taught how to use that instrument of self-help, which knowledge of the sounds of the letters really is. It was unfortunate for me, and others, that Helen Perkins could not have continued to teach country schools!

She went from Paris to the Fisk Institute for colored students in Nashville, Tennessee, where she helped in its organization and taught for many years. She was instrumental in starting the troupe of singers from Fisk Institute--who as the "Tennesseeans," besides bringing it financial help, made that school famous throughout the country by their inimitable rendering of negro melodies. They, it is said, were the first company of colored singers to reveal the beauty and the charm of what are now called spirituals.

When Miss Perkins came north for her summer vacations, she always visited my parents, and it was from her that I got the account of her efforts to teach me to read. She told many of her experiences as teacher in Fisk Institute and as a resident of that community, where a northern woman thus engaged was considered an intruder and made to feel it in many ways. Miss Perkins died about ten years ago in a home for the aged in Cincinnati. Fred M. Perkins, who is a cousin of Helen, and who formerly lived in Burlington, resides now in Kenosha. His son, A. Walker Perkins, was with the Byrd Antarctic Expedition.

The chronology of the successive teachers in District No. 5, Paris, Kenosha County, is more uncertain and broken than that for the decade of the fifties. There are several causes for this. The war was absorbing attention and bringing new and distracting duties to those upon whose assistance I have relied in my account of early days. Besides this, a terrible disaster came to the Davison family in the fall of 1861. My father was crippled for life by being thrown out of a wagon in a run-away accident. His experiences had about run the gamut of those disasters that nature brings upon farmers--drought, chinch bugs, grasshoppers, and the army-worm. These meant increased labor, and the impairment of resources; but while they were a terrible trial, they were not utterly discouraging. There was always the hope that nature's balance would soon be restored, so with courage he cheerfully worked on. But this disaster was different.

All the consequences to the family of the sad event are hardly relevant in this history, in which an effort has been made to keep out such biographical incidents as may have no general historic interest. But it does seem relevant to give the story of the cause of accident to my father. Had it not been for a saloon, the accident would not have occurred, and the subsequent history of his family would have been very different in many respects. The strictly temperate habits of my father had rendered his wife and children immediately immune to the influence of that arch enemy of the home; but, nevertheless, he fell a victim to it through its hold upon another.

On the thirteenth day of November, 1861, father had taken a load of wheat to the market in Racine, and mother and Cordillo, my older brother, had accompanied him. Late in the afternoon, their business finished, they drove westward out of the city along the road which is now Washington Street. Just outside the city limits they passed a saloon, which had once been within the city limits, but which on account of its notorious character had been declared a public nuisance. The proprietor had been deprived of his license and had been obliged to leave. He had established himself on the main road, and with gambling in full operation was getting a considerable part of the money of farmers returning home after sales of grain or other produce--a typical "spider and fly" situation. When my parents passed this place, they noticed six or eight teams hitched to convenient posts in front of the saloon. Across the road was a team of gray horses not tied. The carelessness of their owner was commented upon. The weather was cold, and the horses--many of them doubtless having waited a long time for their masters--were restless.

My parents had proceeded about eight miles and were approaching Kellogg's Corners when they heard behind them the rumble of a wagon on the hard frozen turnpike. Thinking it might be one of the saloon visiting farmers, father, whose horses were young, but well-broken and tractable, turned out to the side of the road, stopped his team and gave the full right-of-way to the on-coming outfit. When it came up, he recognized the gray horses previously observed, without a driver, going at a brisk pace for home, which we afterwards learned was in Brighton. His horses seemed to sense at once an unusual situation, and sprang suddenly to follow the other team. The sudden lurch, as the horses sprang up from the side of the road, threw father, a large, heavy man, against the side or end of the high spring seat on which he and mother sat, and this giving way, he was thrown to the ground. Mother was also thrown out, but was not injured. The lines caught in the wheel which changed the course of the horses, and caused them to run into the fence and stop. Mother found father in the road about twenty feet back, unconscious and apparently dead. Cordillo, who was uninjured, ran to the home of Charles DeLong where help was secured. Mother, meanwhile, was trying to assist father, who had regained consciousness, and was endeavoring to get up. Men carried him to the DeLong house where efforts were made to relieve his suffering. He insisted upon being taken home, and that was done.

At the home in Paris the children had been waiting for the return of the parents and brother. The hour was late, and the older ones were anxious. Suddenly the dog sprang up, barked and ran at full speed up the road, for his ear had caught the familiar rumble of the wagon. It approached very slowly, Cordillo driving. They knew at once that something was wrong and very soon learned that father had been nearly killed. Cordillo snatched the harness off one of the horses and mounting him started for the doctor at Union Grove, six miles away. With the help of the children, mother got father into the house.

I, then a child of five years, had been put to bed downstairs to await the homecoming. Among my distinct early recollections is that of being aroused and of being told what had happened, the significance of which I could not then comprehend. I recall the arrival of Dr. Adams, the deepest impression being made by the queer lantern that he carried, and the effect it had upon walls, floor, and ceiling when he set it down. They became spotted with light, and the spots sometimes appeared in patterns. When the lantern moved, the bright spots capered about. That beautiful lantern, with rounded slits in sides and top, which emitted light from the burning candle within, is a very distinct memory--the only phase of the tragedy I was then capable of realizing.

The doctor found no broken bones, but a terribly bruised spine. He was not a surgeon, but a successful practitioner of the old school. There was no X-ray then to enable him to locate the injury. What he could do he did, and was honest in his advice, differing in this respect from another later advisor, who promised a cure by an outside application, which caused excruciating pain, but brought no benefit. The anxiety of mother to leave nothing untried that might bring relief gave to quackery other opportunities, with the sure result of big hills.

This sort of experimentation stopped when the patient became the inmate of the Kenosha Water Cure, a sanitarium that had been opened in 1857 by Edgar Pennoyer, where skillful physicians were employed. There my father spent most of the time for seven years in a vain effort to recover from his injury, mother being with him as nurse much of the time. The responsibilities of the home, and the direction of younger brothers and sisters devolved in mother's absence upon Ida, the eldest daughter, who in 1861 was only fifteen years old. As soon as father felt a little better, he would insist upon returning to the farm, and there, attempting to do work sorely needing attention, would suffer a setback. Thus, through no fault of his own, was this useful, active, ambitious man cut off at the age of forty-seven years and doomed to the suffering life of a semi-invalid. There came to him and to his family some compensation for this, in the Emersonian sense, and of that I may tell later.

Neighbors were kind, and two instances of such a manifestation I especially want to relate. On that November day in 1861 when A. J. Davison was hurt, plans had already been made, and invitations issued for a husking-bee at our home. He wanted to have the plans carried out. On the evening of the party, seventy-five boys and girls, women and middle-aged men responded. I well remember the scene in the moonlight--the laughter, the singing, the hustle and excitement, the cry set up when loosened husks revealed a red ear and the chase which this piece of good luck always precipitated; and the anxiety of my mother, since more had come than were expected, lest the food prepared with the help of women neighbors would not hold out. When the worker-guests departed, several hundred bushels of corn lay in piles among the heaps of husks and stalks. The fall husking was finished.

The second neighborly act occurred the next spring, 1862. It was late, and the corn on the Davison farm had not been planted. The seed was ready, for father was able to use his hands, and the carefully selected ears had all been shelled and awaited planting. One morning late in June, according to some preconcerted plan, the neighbors surprised the family by calling for the seed and announcing a planting-bee. The women came in the afternoon. There had been organized in the neighborhood a Soldiers' Aid Society, and since my mother now had a new Wheeler and Wilson sewing machine, the first in the neighborhood, our home was frequently a meeting place. On this afternoon their special project was the making of a flag for a private company called the Paris Home Guards, composed of young men of about eighteen years of age. So while husbands and brothers were at work in the fields, the women were putting together the red, white, and blue, and preparing the supper for all.

At other times the Soldiers' Aid met to make bandages or to scrape lint for use in soldiers' hospitals. Scraps of linen of all sorts were carefully saved for this latter purpose, such as old table cloths, towels, shirt bosoms, and old linen sheets, of which most families were possessed by inheritance. With steel table knives, the pieces of linen, laid on a board or over the knee, were scraped, and the fine lint of fiber resulting from the process was collected. We children were brought into this form of service, and many times were assigned to scraping linen as soon as we got home from school. Small hands kept at work until fingers and wrists ached. Every month a box of hospital supplies was sent away. Besides the articles named, delicacies like jams and jellies were sent for the sick soldiers.

The war entailed upon women and children much harder tasks than this one. Men for farm work could not be found. With father disabled, the brunt of the field work fell upon the shoulders of my brothers--boys in their teens; the milking had to be done by the female members of the family. My sisters when as young as seven or eight years were engaged in this task. The strain on young muscles and tendons was not conducive to the development of shapely hands, but the work had to be done.

But milking cows was not the severest labor that women and girls in such circumstances as ours were obliged to perform. They worked in the hayfield, driving the mower, raking (with a hand rake), a piling, pitching, loading, and unloading. They worked in the harvest field, a girl of eleven years driving the reaper, and her sister a little older, raking off, or vice versa. While binding sheaves, which was done with their own straw, was considered a man's art, women and girls had to acquire it. The shocking of the grain seemed to be considered a woman's job and it required skill to do it rightly. During war times my mother and older sisters did about all of it on our farm, while we younger children carried to them the scattered bundles. It was considered a piece of good fortune when a young, strong, newly-arrived German woman from "Milwaukee Woods" came and was hired to help throughout the haying and harvest season, doing a man's work.

It was the witnessing of this hard work being done by those whom he would have spared, which caused my father, upon his return from the sanitarium one summer, to insist upon being allowed to drive the reaper. With the help of others and by painful effort, he was mounted upon the seat. The experience was disastrous to him, for the jarring undid all that rest and treatment had done for the injured spine, and he was left even worse off than before--worse in body and with hope seriously impaired.

I was too young to share much in the hard labors which circumstances imposed on the family, but certain tasks were assigned to me, and are today not only pleasant memories, but are appreciated for their character-education effect--the unfailing effect upon a child of adapted work, regularly performed, and of coöperative effort, rewarded by loving appreciation and deserved praise. As soon as I was old enough, a special piece of work was assigned me to do; Carrie, my next older sister and pal, had hers, as probably those who preceded us had had. It was Carrie's duty to see that potatoes in some form were ready to prepare for breakfast. Breakfast for farm hands had to be a substantial meal. The responsibility named was hers. She could advise with mother or an older person in charge whether those left over would be enough to warm up, or whether others must be prepared for baking or boiling. My special duty was to see that dry kindling and wood were ready for the kitchen fire. Chips, split pine, old shingles, selected pieces of wood from the great woodpile--these must be gathered and in readiness before nightfall. Sometimes, when it had rained, the oven had to be used as a drying place; but I learned to save myself trouble when rain threatened by getting my work done before it came on, and did so whenever it was possible. The news that an oak tree in the pasture had been felled was very welcome, and baskets of the great chips were lugged and hoarded for future use. When some unusual occurrence interfered with our duties, it was "up to us" to arrange to have them done by someone else, whom we were expected to compensate by a reciprocal favor. Thus early habits of responsibility were established.

There were other duties such as pulling mustard from the growing fields of wheat and oats, the sight of which weed was very disturbing to my father. The feeling to my bare feet of the soft, warm soil in the fields of green grain, and the pungent odor of the yellow-blossomed weed are not unpleasant memories. There was also the lugging of baskets of food and pots of hot coffee to the workers in the haying and harvest fields, and helping with the churning of the butter. But I was not overworked, as were my older sisters and brothers by the general conditions imposed by the war, plus those resulting from the misfortune in the home. I never learned to milk, and was too timid to ride on horseback alone, differing greatly in this respect from my older sisters, especially Carrie, who was agile and daring.

I shared in many experiences that were just play. I watched the pitching of the bay in the dusky twilight of the barn, and between unloadings jumped and tumbled about in the steadily rising pile. Soon the level reached the beam, topping the low plank partition between the barn floor and the hay mow. Then the pile rose above it, higher and higher, until the hay had to be pitched up instead of down or over, and a ladder was needed to make the descent from it. The barn swallows flying in and out of the openings in the gables were greatly agitated; their clay nests were fastened along the rafters and under the ridge pole, and danger to their homes and families seemed to them to increase with every intrusive load.

It was fun also to ride on the hay loads as they jolted in from the fragrant meadows; but once something happened that was not so pleasant. Cordillo was driving, I was sitting with brother William on the top of the high load. As it approached the door, the driver called to the younger brother to lower the pitch fork, which was standing upright. This was immediately done, but in the act of driving the tines in slant-wise, one of them encountered my foot buried in the hay. It pierced the leather of my shoe and penetrated my foot in the metatarsal region. Of course, I shrieked; my frightened brother jerked out the sharp, bright steel point, and, I still shrieking, was lowered to the ground. Mother in the house had heard the outcry, and hurried to the scene; blood was oozing from the hole in the leather, and the hurt was severe. My mother knew what to do in such emergencies, and with the care she promptly gave, any bad effect that might have resulted was obviated. For many years a small scar showed where the cruel tine had penetrated.

But there were many pleasant experiences to counter-balance those of the opposite sort. Our new psychology tells us of the "conditioning" of children by certain experiences, and thus passing on into adult life peculiar likes and dislikes or other idiosyncrasies. I am fond of rainy days--not stormy days, but those with a soft drizzle. One of my recollections of early childhood is that of feeling a thrill of delight when I wakened on such a day. It meant that father would not be in the fields, but in the barn, and that I could be out there with him to watch the performance of interesting work. The running of the fanning mill was fascinating. It was one that needed the assistance of the hired man or an elder brother. I watched the shoveling of the grain from the bin into the measure, the pouring of it into the hopper of the fanning mill, the turning of the crank by a strong arm, and the immediate surprising effect of the whirlwind set up within the mill--dirt and chaff flying out behind it, and clean wheat pouring out into a measure placed in front to receive it. I saw this grain put into clean bags marked A.J.D. with red paint, an association that helped the learning of these letters later. Sometimes these bags of grain would go to the Perkins flour mill in Burlington and would come home as white and graham flour, middlings and bran. Sometimes this grain was destined for the market at Racine or Kenosha. When the cleaning of grain was not the rainy-day occupation, there was something else of interest going on; questions were patiently answered, and I was interested and happy.

In the fall the children anticipated the coming of the "thrashers" with greater pleasure than did the women of the household. To the latter it meant two or more days of hard work in preparation for that coming. A large company of hearty men would have to be fed, most of them two, a few of them three meals a day. I remember that in preparation a large boiled or baked ham and other meats, loaves of bread, pans of pork and beans, rows of apple pies, and dozens of doughnuts were made ready. But to us younger children threshing time meant "reserved seats" on the corncrib steps, and the joy of watching all the proceedings.

We saw the great red machine drawn in by several spans of horses. First, a strong, heavy contraption was staked down, with much swinging of sledge hammers--this some distance from the stacks of grain. Into this, several long sweeps or wooden bars were fixed to which horses would be hitched, to be driven round and round in a circle. We saw the little platform where the driver would sit. The tumbling rod was pointed out to us, and we were especially charged never to get near it when it was moving. Other contrivances for the transmission of power were probably explained to us. The huge thing, called, for some reason unknown to us, the "separator," was put in place, with its straw-carrier pointed in the direction desired. A long ladder was placed up against one of the high conical stacks, and a man mounted it to the top. He removed its grass thatch and threw it down, then pitched off a few bundles of grain until he could find a foot-hold on that lofty pile. Men to stack the straw, those to feed the bundles into the machine, and others to take care of the grain were in their places. When everything was ready, the horses were started, the tumbling rod began to revolve, belts moved wheels, and a grinding, rattling noise came from the big machine. A man up in front of the machine caught a bundle pitched to him, cut its band, passed it on to another man who spread it out and shoved it headfirst into the toothed maw of the machine. Out of a spout flowed the grain, up the long sloping carrier moved the despoiled straw. It poured out on the roof of the long cattle shed, covered it deep and flowed over into the cattle yard beyond. The great straw stack, extended as needed by pitching and repitching, reached from the barn as far eastward as its barrier service was needed. Snugly walled in by depths of straw against the cold north wind were the stalls for the cows, and pens for calves and sheep. While we watched the growing straw stack, the grain, chiefly wheat but sometimes oats or barley, was being transported to the bins in the barn. A careful tally was kept, and the farmer finally knew what his plowing, sowing, reaping, binding, shocking, pitching, loading, hauling, unloading, stacking, "unstacking," and threshing all amounted to.

Today, on a western farm, a little girl watching harvesting operations would see a great machine, engine drawn, eliminating all these operations between reaping and threshing, and adding to the latter the bagging of the grain which, dropped along its course, awaited transportation to store house or market. For little girls "with reserved seats" on the corncrib steps, this phase of farming seems to have lost some of its interest.

And besides this, the machine age has deprived her of many other joys, for which, perhaps, other have been substituted. But what could be so interesting as the excursions into the field with lunches for the harvesters, or the rides on loads of grain bundles, or watching the building of the stacks with their beautifully curved outline,--for which my father and his sons after him were noted,--or watching the roofing of these stacks with long slough grass, which was securely moored to the stack tops by ropes of the same placed criss-cross, with heavy sticks of wood dangling at their ends, or circular tracks made by the feet of the horses at threshing time which made an appropriate ring later for cavorting circus horses and other sports, or straw stacks on which to slide down, or play hide-and-seek in and about! A loss of joy chargeable to a progressive age.

As to the women concerned with the culinary accompaniments of threshing time, their task of filling hungry stomachs has, probably without protest from them, been greatly reduced.

Apologies are, perhaps, due my readers for this long detour into the field of personal and family experiences. But now we return to school, and to education, not incidental, but purposed.

As the war progressed, the scarcity of well-qualified men teachers increased and "In 1864 no attempt was made by the Wisconsin State Teachers' Association to hold its annual summer meeting because so many of its members were absent in the army fighting to preserve the Union."1

One winter during the war William Emmett taught in District No. 5. He was unable to control the school, and used methods of discipline against which the parents revolted--an encouraging evidence that the educational right hand was coming to question what the educational left hand was doing. An illustration of what he did is cited just for purposes of comparison with the more enlightened treatment of children now. It is remembered by my younger sister, a member of the primer class, that for inability to spell "does" she and two other little children were punished by being put in different corners of the school room, faces to wall, and ordered to keep their eyes on their books--to study the word "does," probably, which they could not see through their tears. When one was caught looking off the book, the big man bumped her head into the corner. The fact that there was a protruding nail in one of the corners tended to increase the impression of this experience. For this and other evidences of inefficiency this teacher soon gave place to another.

One winter term was taught by John Downey, whose family was mentioned in the second chapter, and who was not drafted for the war, because he was the mainstay of the family.

John was not especially well prepared for the work, and he knew it; but a man teacher was needed, and no one else was available. He was honest and earnest, possessed good common sense, and was not a failure. A little old book, which I treasure, gives the date of his service in District No. 5. On the front flyleaf the information is conveyed that it was presented to me for "exceeding" those in my class in spelling--a promise in a nine-year-old that did not later show fulfillment in a practical way, but which is readily accounted for in the case of a visual-minded child at a time when "excellence in spelling" meant ability to memorize the letter-sequence of long and difficult words, and not, as now, mastery of word-forms needed in the written expression of thought.

On the back flyleaf is this: "Present. This is to certify that Miss Mary Davison for deportment and attention to studies merits the approbation of her teacher. John Downey, Teacher. Paris, Wisconsin, March 27th, 1865."

This little book seems to me to be worthy of brief comment, since it was a forerunner of really interesting children's books. It was copyrighted in 1842, and is of 16mo size; it bears the title Scripture Stories for Children and Youth by the author of American Popular Lessons, Tales from American History, and others. It is illustrated with wood engravings.

The preface, after setting forth the author's purposes, very sound according to modern ideals, closes with this apologetic sentence: "It is hoped that no offense is given in these pages to any Christian, and that they will prove useful to children of all denominations."--Signed "Author" (name not given).

Other teachers of District No. 5 between 1860 and 1868 did not leave with me such a durable, tangible evidence of their services, although every one of them must have made some contribution to my educational progress, even though little of a specific nature is recalled. Among these teachers were Mary Sniffin, Henry Tinkham, James Oliver, George Spence from Somers Township, and Charles Woodworth of Pleasant Prairie.

In the summer of 1864, a housekeeper was found to take charge of the farm home in the periodical absences of my mother, and Ida again went to Chicago to live at the home of Uncle B. F. Davison. While this was a change for her, it did not mean rest or leisure. Besides being expected to help with the house work, she had partial change of the rather difficult youngest child of the family, a boy of five or six years, who, today, as Dr. John Thorne Davison is a well known physician in Stockton, California. In the fall she entered the eighth grade of the Washington School on Indiana Street, the principal at that time being R. B. Cutter. Her age was above that of most of the pupils; but she was ambitious to improved this opportunity for schooling, and since time after school was used for other studies, midnight often found her at her lessons.

The relating of this bit of family history would be in doubtful taste, except the fact that she was in Chicago in April, 1865, when the closing events of the Civil War were taking place. Her account of happenings in a Chicago school during those stirring days,--of how news was obtained and spread before there were telephones, of how distant errands were performed before the time of speedy bicycles, and automobiles, and when street car facilities were limited,--all these seem to warrant the inclusion of her recital as a part of this narrative, although it is only indirectly connected with the main subject. She recalls two very exciting days, about a week apart, in early April, 1865. I wish that I could reproduce here the dramatic effect with which I have heard my sister tell to young listeners--nephews and nieces and later to their children--the story of what happened in that large upper grade of the Washington School, Chicago, on those exciting mornings. This, without variation as to content, she has recently, at my request, repeated to me. Thinking that these unusual personal reminiscences of the Civil War should not be lost, I give them a place in these pages.

On Monday morning, April 3, flags were observed flying from public buildings, but when school had opened the cause of this was not known.

The principal, Mr. Cutter, referring to the flags, said, "Something very important must have happened. I want three of the fastest runners in this school to go down town to get the news!"

There were many boys who thought themselves qualified and eagerly exclaimed, "Let me go!"

Three were picked, and orders given with military precision, "You, John, to the Times! You, Tom, to the Tribune! You, Charles, to the Journal!" Then they were off.

After whispered directions to a boy to go to all lower grade rooms and tell the teachers to dismiss their schools and come upstairs, the principal said, "Now, let's sing while we wait." Instantly the school pianist, a little Jewish boy, Julius Hyman, was in his place.

"What shall we sing?" asked Mr. Cutter.

When in response a boy shouted, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again," an unrestrained shout went up, and Julius' prelude was followed by spirited singing. This was followed by other songs: "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," "Rally Round the Flag, Boys," "Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue," and "Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground."

In twenty minutes the first panting messenger was back with the news that Petersburg had been captured the previous day. In thirty minutes the others came with the same news. Briefly Mr. Cutter, deeply moved, explained the significance of the event reported. With Petersburg, the stronghold to the south of Richmond captured, the capital of the Confederacy would soon be in the possession of the Union Army.

Then he said, "This is a great event. I cannot keep school at such a time. You are dismissed for the day!"

Even as he spoke, so history tells us, the Union Army was entering Richmond, where Lincoln himself followed the next day.

Just a week from that day, Monday, April 10, signal flags were again flying. The evening before something had happened in Chicago that had caused great alarm throughout the city. Lights went out; the gas supply had been cut off at its source. There were near Chicago at that time at Camp Douglas, a large number of Confederate prisoners, and fear existed in the public mind of an outbreak there. Rumors were abroad of the possible delivery of these prisoners with the aid of sympathizers secretly operating in Chicago. It was understood that if such an event should occur, the city would be immediately plunged into darkness. At the city gas works on Sunday evening, April 9, excitement among the people being observed, it was thought that the time had come, and hence, the darkness. In the home of B. F. Davison on North Carpenter Street, as in others throughout the city, candles and kerosene lamps were lit. At bedtime it was not known what happened, but by midnight serious apprehension was relieved in this home by word brought by a special messenger that Lee had surrendered.

But this news does not seem to have reached Mr. Cutter, and seeing the flags, he again sent runners and the program of the Monday previous was carried out. When the first messenger burst into the room with the news that Lee had surrendered, and the other panting runners followed close with the same report, pupils shouted and teachers wept for joy. This was the news long awaited; it meant the end for the terrible war. Boys and girls were told to hurry home to tell their parents that the war was over, and to wait the newspapers for the details of the great event.

The news of Lee's surrender reached our farm neighborhood in the early evening of April 10, and a great bonfire was built by my brothers in the road to celebrate it. Attracted by the shouting and the blaze, a crowd of neighboring young people soon gathered. There was no wise counsel to check and guide their enthusiasm, and I recall that travelers along the road were obliged to rein out and guide their frightened horses by the fire. Stopping to complain or chide, they got the news and, forgetting their ire, hurried on to carry to other neighborhoods the joyful tidings that the war was over!

Just by way of contrast, and as a reminder of the privileges of our time, I cite a recent occurrence of national interest, namely, the arrival of the Byrd Antartic Expedition in New York harbor on June 18, 1930, and their landing on the following day, when the doings of every moment were instantaneously made known to radio listeners all over the country.

The week of April 10 that brought such rejoicing throughout the North, included at its end the fatal fourteenth and fifteenth which brought world-wide mourning. On Saturday morning, the fifteenth, it was observed that flags were flying at half mast and my uncle was very anxious.

Suddenly, while the family was at breakfast, a neighbor appeared at the door with: "Captain Davison, have you heard the news?" His white face foretold the tragedy. In an intense, low voice came the words: "They got our president last night--shot him!"

There were other white faces, and a more seriously alarming effect upon the devoted admirer of Lincoln, who sat at the head of the table. Millions of citizens received at their breakfast tables this awful intelligence from Washington, "which fell with the crushing and stunning effect of an unspeakable calamity."2

This week ended the school term in Chicago, and Ida was ready to go home for the spring vacation of one week. Amid scenes of great excitement, she finally reached the depot and was put aboard the train for Kenosha. There she was met by another, who had heard the rumor that had rapidly spread throughout the city and into the country, but who still hoped that it might be unfounded. As they drove along the Burlington Road, people came out to ask for later news, and to learn, if possible, some details of the strategy, the newspapers having not yet reached them. Among them was Mrs. Gray, whose son John, one of the first to enlist, had died, and whose personal grief now seemed to suffer an overwhelming accession.

When vacation closed, Ida went back to Chicago to resume school, expecting then to complete the eighth grade at the close of the spring term. She was there when, on May 1 and 2, that city participated in the funeral obsequies of Lincoln. Before giving an account of her impression of that event, a brief review of the history of that funeral pageant seems relevant.

The funeral services in Washington had occurred on Wednesday, April 19. It was finally arranged that the funeral cortege should follow, in a reversed order of procedure, substantially the same route over which Lincoln had come to Washington in 1861, "to take possession of the office to which he had given a new dignity and value for all time."3 As soon as this plan was announced and it was known that Lincoln would be buried at his old home, Springfield, Illinois, every town and city on the route begged that the train might halt within its limits and give the people the opportunity of testifying to their grief and their reverence. For two weeks the body of the "Martyr-Chief" had been carried from place to place and everywhere were symbols of mourning. Everywhere .... the Nation he had led,
With ashes on her head,
Wept with the passion of an angry grief:4

Multitudes had gathered and had waited through long hours for an opportunity to join processions, which sometimes for twenty-four hours in unbroken line streamed by the open coffin. The body arrived in Chicago on the morning of May 1.

In that city, all high school, and seventh and eighth grade pupils were included in the public demonstration of respect. Those of the Washington School located on Indiana Street assembled early on that morning, each with a badge of black and white ribbon made into a rosette. Difficulty had been experienced in getting the needed material, as the demand throughout the city had completely exhausted the supply.

The badge worn by my sister, partly made of home adapted material, is kept as a memento of the occasion. At eight o'clock the long march from school to the down town section began. The body lay in state at the courthouse "under a canopy of sombre richness, inscribed with that noble Hebrew lament, 'The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places.'" The courthouse was located then, as now, between Washington and Randolph streets. Each school had its assigned station in that vicinity in some side street opening upon the main thoroughfare. In that locality thousands of boys and girls assembled. Hour after hour they waited while the procession of men and women streamed through the courthouse. It was two o'clock in the afternoon before the order came for the schools to move. Many pupils had become so weary with the long walk, with the standing for hours throughout the noon time without food or drink, that they had sunk down quite exhausted upon the pavement of the street to rest. Now they gladly started up, going west on Washington Street and mounting the courthouse steps six abreast. It was an impressive experience for these children to be a part of such an imposing funeral pageant. At the entrance stood an officer, who separated the column, which passed three and three on each side of the great catafalque. With awe and reverence, naturally commingled with curiosity, they moved forward; but these emotions soon gave place to others. Some one, thinking that impressionable children should be spared the sight of the dead face, had caused the coffin lid to be closed. To the young patriots, many of them of high school age, this seemed an act of injustice and their inward reaction to it was immediate. Disappointed and angry, they moved down the north steps and dispersed to their homes with this unfortunate emotional association, which must surely have been less desirable and more lasting than the impression that would have been left by the glimpse of the dead face of him whom they had come to honor. I wonder how many of that youthful throng did as one is known to have done, who found a place the next day with an adult companion in the "mighty stream of humanity" and passed again by the coffin, then open.

I will close this account indirectly connected with my theme, with another historical reference, the reading of which has always impressed me deeply and of which my readers may be glad to be reminded. At the ceremonies of the Lincoln burial at Springfield on May 4, there were read over his grave the words of the Second Inaugural Address, which reading has been likened to the choice by the friends of Raphael of the incomparable canvas of the "Transfiguration" as the chief ornament of his funeral."1

After this long disgression, my story of School District No. 5 is now resumed. Mention will be made of two more teachers of this decade. My sister, Ida, had gained enough in scholarship in that Chicago eighth grade to enable her to pass, in the spring of 1866, the examination for a teacher's certificate in Kenosha County, and she taught the home school that summer.

A later teacher well remembered was Ellen Barter of Pleasant Prairie, Kenosha County, a graduate of the Kenosha high school, class of 1865. She taught our school for two terms, the winter of 1867-68, and the following summer. The former term brought to the school some large boys whom she was especially skillful in managing. She introduced the singing of new and popular songs, and displayed a sympathetic understanding of young people and their interests. Better pay offered by the Chicago schools attracted her there, and she taught in that city a number of years, until her marriage to a Mr. Shove of Minneapolis. Her daughter, Helen B. Shove, is now the principal of one of the large Minneapolis elementary schools, and has, for a decade or more, been active in the National Education Association. With Miss Barter my account of teachers in District No. 5 closes.

In the fall of 1866 a great grief came to our home. This was the death on September 4, of Cordillo, the elder son and brother. In Racine, where after the summer farm work was done, he had gone to learn a trade, he contracted typhoid fever, and died a few days after coming home. In the fall of 1868 the farm was sold, and we moved to Kenosha.

My account of nearly two decades in School District No. 5, so far as it has dealt with the school itself, is but a corroboration of the old maxim, "As is the teacher, so is the school." In the next chapter. I will tell of other factors affecting school efficiency and of educational influences other than the school.

1 C. E. Patzer, Public Education in Wisconsin, 69.

2 "This was the first time the telegraph had been called upon to spread over the world tidings of such deep and mournful significance; ...." See Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, x, 314

3 Ibid., 319.

4 James Russell Lowell, Poetical Works, "Commemoration Ode," 386.

1 Nicolay and Hay, op. cit., x, 323