Elna Senecal Butterfield

School Days Elna Senecal Butterfield

We walked to school. This was no badge of merit; it was an accepted fact. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, temperatures well below freezing with a crisp wind, it didn't matter. We walked to school because that was the only way we'd get there. School was about a mile from home. Today the odometer measures just a little over three-quarters of a mile, but the hilltops have been gouged away, the dips have been filled and raised, and corners have been straightened to expedite today's speeding traffic. In those days, the road was a narrow dirt road. The few vehicles that used it kicked up a wake of dust as they passed by us. I think my favorite times walking to and from school were in the fall. There was a newness about school that I actually relished after the long summer vacation. I enjoyed the colors of autumn, the lavenders and pinks of the wild asters amidst the yellow goldenrod along the roadside. I liked how the dewdrops glistened like jewels on the grass in the mornings. But every season had something special to offer on our treks to and from school. School life in the 1940s was far from boring: Quill pens and penmanship. Slate blackboards and chalk. Wood stove and pottery water jug. Sledding and snowballs. Dinner pails and picnics. Rhythm band and pump organ. Teacher and the woodshed. This little book tells of these and so much more. These were my school days in a one-room schoolhouse in 1940s Vermont. I hope you enjoy these stories.