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Show by breakfast time and again after school. Then he helped with whatever chores there were in addition to the milking. John K liked school and was willing to work hard so that he could attend for even so short a time, during his eighth and ninth years. The teachers were Ezra Day, Abraham Johnson, Augusta Delean and Eda Delean. Spelling matches or spelling bees were big events each Friday afternoon. One day when John K was in the first reader all of the students in the second reader failed to spell wheat. Ezra Day told John K if he would spell it he could go on into the second reader. He did so and was later able to move into the third reader for being able to spell scissors when the students in that reader had failed to do so. Those few winter months, and those when they lived back in town for two full winters awaiting the new house, constituted all of the schooling John K was ever able to obtain. Had he lived in town continually-with no farm chores to be done in the Bottoms-he could have taken advantage of more schooling in the winter months of his early years. During those pioneer settlement days, there was always some task awaiting John K from the first spring months into the latest autumn. Developing the new homestead carried many little side jobs along with regular chores. Clearing brush from the land, making ditches, irrigating as the land 35 |
