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If the school needed something special, the home economics teacher let students make
candy and sell it for money to buy the needed item. In fact, our class had to make money to

buy groceries to be able to cook food in home economics class. The teacher gave in now and
then and let us cook.
I’m sure she grew tired of teaching, us all about nutrition—what we should or
shouldn’t eat—all of that vitamin stuff, vitamins A, B, C, D, E, andon down the alphabet. I

got tired of hearing it, and I’m pretty sure she got tired of teaching it. We knew that when
we got home, we were going to eat whatever we had to eat—no matter what we learned in
her classroom.

Many afternoons I came home from school feeling like I was starving. My mother
made the best biscuits you would ever want to put into your mouth. She always had biscuits
ready for us. I’d take one and poke my finger in the middle and pour syrup into that hole
slowly until it filled up. A couple of those syrup biscuits could satisfy those hunger pains; if

not, we could always fix another biscuit.
Every April Fool’s Day all of the students in Mason School above fourth grade slipped
away from school at the morning recess and1 returned to school just in time to catch the bus

at 3 p.m. We always took a special lunch with us that day, and then spread all of our lunches
together for a picnic. Someone took newspapers for our tablecloth or rather our ground
cloth. We played baseball and other games and had a good time all day. The woods were
beautiful where we picnicked—Tots of huge oak trees with little underbrush. It was nice and

shady and so peacefill.
On one April Fool’s afternoon, at about the time the buses were tO' arrive, we were
coming <up the back road, approaching the school, and along came Mr. Ogsbum with an

eight-foot-long switch. We had already talked it over that if he tried to punish us in any
physical way like whipping us, we would all just pile on him at one time. There were about
fifty of us.

Mr. Ogsbum. kept walking toward us, making threatening gestures. The older boys
stepped up at the front of the crowd. Roy, my pal and uncle, and Ralph Witt, my sometimes
boyfriend who later became sheriff of Columbia County, carried a hammer. They held the

hammer up to show to the principal.
“If you touch any one of us, we’re going to knock you in the head with the hammer,”
Ralph Witt shouted.
I guess Mr. Ogsbum believed Ralph and Roy because he stopped, turned around, and

started walking back toward the school. We piled onto the waiting buses. I never did hear a
sputter from my parents. We pulled this stunt every year on April Fool’s Day as long as I
attended school at Mason.

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