Montville was a very large town in actual size but in population, not so much. It was a farming community and most of my friends and school mates were farm kids like me. The long drive from the main road to our house was actually not a driveway but continued on past our house, down a hill with a rickety bridge that was long ago unsafe to drive on, up the hill across rock ledges to two farms. The Walshs lived on one farm and the Wallaces across the road in the other. The Wallaces had one son, Raymond but there were also three of Raymonds cousins living with them. Mrs Wallace was a superb cook and baker, and probably that contributed to Raymonds girth. He was in fourth grade the year I started fifth grade at the Center School. We did not like each other at all and had a number of dust-ups. Most of it stemmed from how he treated his cousins. Betty Conway the oldest of the cousins was one of my friends and we occasionally walked to school together. The town fathers had decreed that all children who lived within a mile of the school would have to walk to school. Im not exactly sure how they measured this mile, perhaps as the crow flies because from our house it was at least two miles. Once we arrived at school there was always heated competition to see who would walk back up the road about 1/4 mile to fetch a pail of water. Lettuce and Perley Allen lived in the house with the well from which we got the water. The wooden bucket was lowered by rope and handle, filled and brought back up to empty into the bucket from school. Then we carried the bucket back to the school to empty into the big water crock. Oh my goodness, my germaphobic self is going ew ew ew ew ew right now. I honestly do not know how we learned anything in those two years at the Center School. Farm kids can be a bit rowdy at times and there was the occasional fight at recess to liven the day up. One such almost fight involved me and Raymond. We had decided that we were going to duke it out at recess, kind of a high noon thing. Before the time rolled around for us to meet a couple of friends came up to me and told me that Raymond was going to put rocks in his fists so he could hit harder. Well let me tell you, my Mama did not raise a dummy and I called off the fight. Im sure I was called a few uncomplimentary names that day, yellow bellied, chicken, fraidy cat, just to name a few of the nicer ones. So even though the book learning was sparse we did learn the value of hard work, and a common sense approach to life in general.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 17:17:49 +0000
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