BY C. D. BON OF OAKDALE

     (171) IT is a far cry back to the summer of 1879, thirty years agone, and yet some incidents of my first visit to Antelope County are still clear and vivid. Settlements lay here and there -- houses built of logs, lumber, sod -- improvements and stock of pioneer quality, stretches of unsettled prairie lying between, everything new, strange, and interesting. But what struck me most forcibly was the sincere cordiality and hospitality of the people. There was no home so crowded (and many had but one room) but had room for the wayfarer, no table too small nor too poor for his supping.

     I had about two months previously, with my young wife, located upon a claim in Madison County about six miles from the Antelope County line, and having heard of Oakdale and Neligh, set out on foot to look over that field for a school. I passed through St. Clair Valley, stopping at A. B. Dillion's to inquire the way, and taking dinner at Mr. Blackford's. In the afternoon I got as far as Mr. Gibson's, about three miles out of Oakdale, where I stayed all night. How distinctly I recall the pleasure their hospitality gave me. The children were attending school in Oakdale village, and we talked school, and teacher, and arithmetic to our hearts' content.

     The next forenoon Oakdale was reached and canvassed. I learned that the village school had one department, one teacher, a short school year (seven months, I think), and what I thought was small pay. Oakdale lively that day, even livelier that it is now, for a ball game with the Neligh "club " -- it was not called "team" then -- was played, and civic pride had brought out the entire (172) population. Of course Oakdale won, which fact did not lessen the gulf already too wide between the two little sister communities.

     On my way from Oakdale to Neligh that afternoon I had to wade the Elkhorn as I did on my return. Near Neligh I sought shelter from a small thunderstorm in a log house near the town. That evening I met among others, Mr. Merritt, who was afterwards superintendent. We talked school interests some, though school affairs were at no whiter heat there than at Oakdale. After considering the matter over night I concluded not to place an application for teacher either at Oakdale or Neligh. The pay and the brevity of the school year I thought would not warrant my leaving my claim to teach, and so. I did not enter the Antelope County teacher's field until over a year later. I had already visited three schools in Madison County and one in Antelope, two of them being held in sod houses, neither having floors or blackboards. At that time there was not a graded school in the counties of Wayne, Pierce, Stanton, Madison, Antelope, and Holt, but one in each of the counties of Dixon, Dakota, Cuming, and Boone, and some of these would not now be called "graded," and north of the Platte there were probably but four "high schools" in the entire state, and they would not be so classed now. I let the intelligent reader make his own comparisons and contrasts, and determine for himself the amount and rate of progress educationally made during the last thirty years.

     In the fall of 1880 I engaged to teach the Bunker Hill school, district No. 10, for a term of three months at a wage of thirty dollars per month, which was considered very good pay for country school teachers. The members of the school board were Turner Gardner, H. B. Thornton, and Orson Fields. These men were very pleasant to work with, and during the two terms I taught there we had no differences of any kind, and I became their debtor for many kindnesses shown me. They must have had a great deal of confidence in me as a teacher, for none of them (173) visited the school during my two terms' work for them. My pay, though not very large, was promptly paid each month, and my orders were never discounted. My certificate was from Superintendent Merritt of Neligh. I had made a trip to Neligh to take an examination, but the superintendent was away for the day, so I took the matter up by correspondence and he kindly endorsed the credentials I held from Wisconsin. It may be of interest to the new generation of teachers in this county to have a picture of the school-house which stood on a hill where it received the full benefit of every wind that blew and all the rain and sunshine that fell. It was built of sod, having two windows and one door but no floor, except the earthen one made and provided by nature. Having been built for some time, the walls, had settled, making cracks through which the snow freely sifted during storms. After one severe storm I was just one hour taking the snow out of the room. The seats and desks were rather rude-made by the carpenter who put in the windows and door. Some of the pupils furnished their own chairs. Needing a blackboard, Mr. Gardner had one made in Oakdale per plans and specifications we furnished. In all my teaching I never had another board of equal size to do the service and afford the good that this one did. The stove was a "box" one, a type but little used now, and for wood only. In speaking of this I cannot warm up to my subject, for, in the three months that stove was never hot. It was such a sociable old piece of iron t It courted familiarity, and never repulsed one by a burst of heat. Hundreds of times that winter that stove was blessed, by pupils and teacher, by the "laying on of hands." How many times I looked into its depths in hopes that symptoms of fiery zeal might be noted only to meet with the discouraging sight of a feeble fire at the back end and water oozing and dripping from the front end of a mass green elm wood.

     This was the "hard winter," the winter which opened with a three days' blizzard October 16, 1880, and lasted (174) until May, 1881. Bitter cold and howling storms were the order of the days and months. Farmers could not move their crops, much small grain was still unthreshed, and a great deal of corn still in the fields under from eight to ten feet of snow. Fuel was scarce and thousands of bushels of corn were burned. Though there was general hardship and no little suffering, one heard very little complaining or fault finding. It was a fine spirit of endurance, grit, and hope that pervaded the snow-bound communities. My school enrolled something over thirty pupils, ranging in age from five years to nineteen, pursuing studies all the way from the alphabet to physiology and algebra. These boys and girls nearly all lived from three-fourths of a mile to two miles from the school-house. All the pupils came on foot, except the Saxton boys, who drove a little white horse and housed him in a hay stable they had made. The attendance was excellent, and tardiness infrequent, the older pupils seldom being absent or tardy. The pupils were studious as a whole, some of them being remarkable for their earnestness and zeal. They were very pleasant in disposition, easily controlled, and very susceptible to good and inspiring influences. The previous instruction must have been of a solid character, for those most advanced were above the average in attainments. I look back upon that term of school with nothing but pleasure. While the discomforts were many, they were all incident to physical environment and now serve as a background to throw into more vivid and distinct relief the cheerfulness, hope, good-will and nobility of character of the fathers and mothers, and all the sweet, endearing charms of childhood.

     My second term was that of the winter of 1881-82, and was as pleasantly passed as the other, without the physical discomforts. The winter was very mild compared with the previous one and coal was furnished for fuel. During this time the entire school went out twice to fight prairie fire. In one place where the fire ran there had been fifteen feet of snow the winter before. The county (175) superintendent made but one visit during the two winters. Superintendent Merritt spent about one and a half hours with us one afternoon and found every one on his good behavior, lessons well learned and well recited. His visit had a happy effect, for, as the teacher stepped for a few minutes out of the room "to speed the parting guest," one of the largest boys gave expression to the exuberance of his feelings by cutting some fantastic "pigeon wings" in the middle of the room, much to the amusement of his audience. Caught in the act by the sudden and noiseless entrance of the teacher, he was arrested in the half completed execution of a difficult number, at once pleaded guilty, and thereafter enjoyed the distinction of being the only pupil in that school in two terms who, in three minutes' time, had passed through the states of active transgression and adequate punishment with all the varying emotions incident thereto. To this day I do not know Superintendent Merritt's opinion of that school and its teacher.

     The writer's acquaintance with other schools and teachers widened somewhat during this second term. The weather being pleasant and the roads good, pupils and teachers went about more, visiting the "lyceums" held in St. Clair school-house several times. To this time I have respect for the abilities, as debaters, of some of the hard-working farmers that used to gather at the debates. They were bright, intelligent, resourceful, and often eloquent, and I would again enjoy the exhilaration I used to feel while listening to them, could I hear them now.

     This school district, No. 10, which has been described at some length, was no better nor any poorer than some others in the county. It stood as a type, and was representative. The hardships of one locality were the lot of pupils, teachers, and parents in other communities. School-houses were usually poor, accessories meager, and opportunities for pedagogical training were entirely wanting, yet all things considered, the teachers would compare favorably with those of this generation. They were unusually (176) bright, and, on account of circumstances, were resourceful and apt in getting the education necessary to teach and in the application of that knowledge as teachers.

     Let me here pay a sincere tribute of honor to the fathers and mothers who were the "power behind the throne" in those country districts. When I think of them and of what they did and endured, my heart is filled with a sense of profound honor for them. Many of them lived in sod houses or dugouts, containing the most meager furnishings; all were not so fortunate as to own a team and tools sufficient to farm with; many were struggling with debt, which was like a mountain in the path of their prosperity; bank interest was two or three per cent a month; proper clothing and even food was out of the question; what they had to buy seemed dear and what they had to sell appeared cheap; fuel, food, clothing, shelter, and public taxes had to be provided for out of a financial budget that was always shrunken and sometimes empty. And yet the rights of children to acquire the rudiments of education -- the right to possess "the three R's"-- was carefully guarded and provided for. The schools were evolutionary; as to location, private house, sod school-houses, frame houses; as to pay, eight dollars, twelve dollars, twenty dollars, thirty dollars; as to the teacher's alma mater, country school, graded school, high school, and at present, normal school, college, university. Sometimes the year's school was only three months, and the district that could afford to have six months of school was both fortunate and affluent. Under all of these discouragements and hardships these parents were cheerful, hopeful, helpful, and stout-hearted. God bless those that are still with us, and may their sunset years be full of peace -- of that peace that comes only to those that have nobly endured severe trials and tribulations -- and may this later generation be glad that they have such a noble heritage.

     It was no misfortune for the boys and girls of that period to be sent to school "beset by these severities." I often wonder at the proficiency and capacity of many of those (177) children. Some of them who had only three or four months' schooling would "fairly drink up their books." It was astonishing how much and how easily they would learn in a single term. Principles would be grasped, reasoning comprehended, and an amount of work turned off that was surprising. There is a psychological reason for this. During the years of deprivation and privation their minds had not remained dormant. Though deprived of the mental pabulum given by school they had other that was as nutritious. Their physical activities had been many and these were always in association with the mental. From early childhood all must be helpful, in working about the house and barn, the care of the stock about the premises and upon the prairies, the plowing and sowing and planting, the harvesting of the crops, the preparation for wintering the stock, the observation of nature in all her different moods of changing seasons, the learning of habits of insects, birds, and wild animals, hunting and fishing for necessary meat food, -- all these activities were educative and made the mind open, receptive, impressionable, keen and alert; hence their surprising capacity to acquire "book learning" when the opportunity came. The lack of school privileges had been in some homes compensated for in part by good books and periodicals such as Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas. Papers and books were freely loaned and eagerly read so that the outside world was frequently brought within the home horizon. Everything in the nature of information that came from books, papers, visits to town, conversation with visitors and chance acquaintances was "grist" to the mental "mill" of these boys and girls, and busily and profitably did they grind. Boys and girls of those far-off years -- young citizens of a splendid period of empire-building, our land will never see your like again, for all the hard conditions. that made those times heroic have passed away; to-day I greet you in love and admiration and believe wherever you help in the world's work that work will be the better done and that your community will be the better because, "poverty cradled you and adversity was your playmate."