Lesson 17

Text A

                               The Coustry Schoollhouse
    The country schooihouse was three miles from my uncle's farm. It stood in a clearing in the woods and would hold about twenty-five boys and girls. We attended the school° with more or less regularity once or twice a week in summer. We walked to it in the cool of the morning by the forest paths, and

 back in the dusk at the end of the day. All the pupils brought their dinners in baskets-corn dodger, buttermilk, and other good things. We sat in the shade of the trees at noon and ate them. It is the part of my education which I look back upon with the most satisfaction. My first visit to the school was

 when I was seven. A strapping girl of fifteen, in the customary sunbonnet and calico dress, asked me if I "used tobacco" -meaning did I chew it. I said no. It roused her scorn. She reported me to all the crowd , and said :
    "Here is a boy seven years old who can't chew tobacco. "

    I learned to smoke fairly well , but that did not win over anybody. I remained a poor thing, and characterless. I longed to be respected, but I never was able to rise. Children have but little charity for one another's defect.