Getting on

The Spinning-Wheel—Coming Home from School—Comments on the School—Ohio Schools described—What Books in the Family— The Locality of the School-house described—Chagrin Falls—James Inquisitive—Questioning the Scholars on the Bible—His Remarkable Memory—Sharp Observation—Great Imitator—The Winter School—James did not go—Long Evenings in the Cabin— James’s Mother Teaching Him—The Child’s Volume—The New Idea of Rain—Great Reader—“The English Reader”—Revels in Books

Mrs. Garfield was making her spinning-wheel hum when the children came home. She was obliged to economize her time in order to clothe her family with goods of her own manufacture. The spinning- wheel and loom were just as indispensable to pioneers, at that time, as a “Dutch oven” was. The age of factories had not come, certainly not in that part of the country. In New England, even, factories were in their infancy then —small affairs.

“Oh, such a good time as we have had!” exclaimed Mehetabel, as she came rushing into the cabin with James and her sister.

“Twenty-one scholars,” added her sister, under considerable excitement. “Mr. Sander’s children were there, and they have twice as far to go as we have. They have to walk over three miles.”

“And how did Jimmy get on at school?” inquired their mother, as soon as there was a place for her to put in a word.

“He liked it,” answered Mehetabel; “he said his letters; and he asked the master how he knew that letter was R.”

“Just like him,” ejaculated Thomas, laughing outright. Thomas had just come in, leaving his work when he saw the children return. “The master will have enough to do to answer all his questions. What did the master tell him?”

“He told him that he learned it was R at school, when he was about as old as he was,” replied Mehetabel. And Thomas was giving Jimmy a toss in the air, by way of sport, while she was relating the facts, and Jimmy himself was making a most vigorous attempt to embellish the occurrences of the day from his imperfect vocabulary.

“How did you like your ride, Jimmy?” inquired Thomas.

“Me like it,” was the child’s answer, uttered in a gleeful way.

“You liked it better than Hit did, I guess.”

“I liked it well enough,” responded Mehetabel.

“Wa’nt you awful tired?”

“I wa’nt tired much.”

“Did you carry him all the way?”

“Pretty much. He walked a little of the way home. He isn’t much of a load.”

“Did he sit still in school?”

“Pretty still. He left his seat once, and went over to scrape the acquaintance of another boy opposite.”

“What did the master say?”