Stories from a Life #6

One Room School (Part 2)

 

   This little school,  District 21, Lake Sinai Township, Brookings County, SD, was on a hill.   The hill doesn't look very big now but as students we really enjoyed it.  It gave us a good place to use our sleds during the winter, running as fast as we could we would slam down on our sleds and go for a ride.

   The school ground was ringed by a double row of fir trees which my father, no doubt, helped to plant.  They proved great hiding for games of hide and seek.  The also created great snow banks in winter blizzards which were fun to play on.  Below the hill was a ball diamond where we played baseball.  Also, below the hill was a small stable to keep the horses students/teachers rode to school.  No one was riding to school in my memory (though one family who lived almost 3 miles from school drove a car, a 1928 Whippet)  so the stable was torn down and the lumber used to construct a backstop for baseball.  There were three outbuildings on top of the hill; out houses for boys and girls and a coal shed.

   Play ground equipment was minimal.   There was a double teeter totter which had an extended elevation of about six feet.   A home made merry ground swing was the only other item.   An old, spoked, car wheel was mounted on a steel post about ten feet high.  Chains had been hung from the wheel extending to a child height.  At a child's level wood bars were fixed to the chains to grasp.  Holding the wood bars students could run, lift their legs and swing in a circle.  The fun was limited by the amount of time one would want to hang by his/her arms.

    Free time, two fifteen minute recesses morning and afternoon and lunch hour, after lunches eaten at our desk were almost always used for group games; kick the can, pump pump pull away, hide and seek, baseball, fox and goose, tag, anti over and sledding when the snow was right.  We had one baseball and if was lost in the tall grass over the fence the game recessed until the ball was found.  Sometimes we resorted to rolling in the grass to find the ball.

    When recess or lunch hour was over the teacher, or a favored student, would recall us to classes with a brass hand bell.  I wonder if I heard it today if it would match the sound that rings in my memory?