Gov. Bob. Taylors Tales | Page 5

the infernal
regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the
trees. The limpid spring bubbled and laughed at the foot of the hill.
Flocks of nimble, noisy boys turned somersaults and skinned the cat
and ran and jumped half hammon on the old play ground. The grim old
teacher stood in the door; he had no brazen-mouthed bell to ring then as
we have now, but he shouted at the top of his voice: "Come to
books!!!" And they came. Not to come meant "war and rumors of war."

The backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight
of irrepressible young America; the multitude of mischievous, shining
faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum
of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future
glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same
everywhere--one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one
thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, one sore toe, and Peter Parley's Travels.
The grim old teacher, enthroned on his split bottomed chair, looked
terrible as an army with banners; and he presided with a dignity and
solemnity which would have excited the envy of the United States
Supreme Court: I saw the school commissioners visit him, and heard
them question him as to his system of teaching. They asked him
whether, in geography, he taught that the world was round, or that the
world was flat. With great dignity he replied: "That depends upon whar
I'm teachin'. If my patrons desire me to teach the round system, I teach
it; if they desire me to teach the flat system, I teach that."
At the old field school I saw the freshman class, barefooted and with
pantaloons rolled up to the knees, stand in line under the ever uplifted
rod, and I heard them sing the never-to-be-forgotten b-a ba's. They sang
them in the olden times, and this is the way they sang: "b-a ba, b-e be,
b-i bi-ba be bi, b-o bo, b-u bu-ba be bi bo bu."
I saw a sophomore dance a jig to the music of a dogwood sprout for
throwing paper wads. I saw a junior compelled to stand on the dunce
block, on one foot--(a la gander) for winking at his sweetheart in time
of books, for failing to know his lessons, and for "various and sundry
other high crimes and misdemeanors."
A twist of the fiddler's bow brought a yell from the fiddle, and in my
dream, I saw the school come pouring out into the open air. Then
followed the games of "prisoner's base," "town-ball," "Antney-over;"
"bull-pen" and "knucks," the hand to hand engagements with yellow
jackets, the Bunker Hill and Brandywine battles with bumblebees, the
charges on flocks of geese, the storming of apple orchards and hornet's
nests, and victories over hostile "setting" hens. Then I witnessed the old
field school "Exhibition"--the wonderful "exhibition"--they call it

Commencement now. Did you never witness an old field school
"exhibition," far out in the country, and listen to its music? If you have
not your life is a failure--you are a broken string in the harp of the
universe. The old field school "exhibition" was the parade ground of
the advance guard of civilization; it was the climax of great events in
the olden times; and vast assemblies were swayed by the eloquence of
the budding sockless statesmen. It was at the old field school
"exhibition" that the goddess of liberty always received a broken nose,
and the poetic muse a black eye; it was at the old field school
"exhibition" that Greece and Rome rose and fell, in seas of gore, about
every fifteen minutes in the day, and,
The American eagle, with unwearied flight, Soared upward and upward,
till he soared out of sight.
It was at the old field school "exhibition" that the fiddle and the bow
immortalized themselves. When the frowning old teacher advanced on
the stage and nodded for silence, instantly there was silence in the vast
assembly; and when the corps of country fiddlers, "one of which I was
often whom," seated on the stage, hoisted the black flag, and rushed
into the dreadful charge on "Old Dan Tucker," or "Arkansas Traveller,"
the spectacle was sublime. Their heads swung time; their bodies rocked
time; their feet patted time; the muscles of their faces twitched time;
their eyes winked time; their teeth ground time. The whizzing bows and
screaming fiddles electrified the audience who cheered at every
brilliant turn in the charge of the fiddlers. The good women laughed for
joy; the men winked at each other and popped their fists; it was like the
charge of the Old Guard at Waterloo, or a battle with a den of snakes.
Upon the completion