Six

One day in school the bigger boys told me the reason girls took small steps was because their legs were growed together up above their knees.  I sure wondered about that but didn’t know how to find out.  I couldn’t ask Father or Mother as no one ever spoke about such things in the family so I didn’t know anything.  I was about 8 or 9.  We had a young woman teacher.  I sued to keep on eye on her when she sat at her desk up front of the room but she wore big baggy bloomers that came down to just above her knee.  They reminded me of an empty grain bag.  She used to catch me watching a couple of times and turned sideways.  She’d give me a funny look and shake her head ‘no’ at me.  Boy, I could feel my face get red.  I was bashful anyways.  I remember once I hid my face with hand but I was sure them bloomers were hiding something.

There was one girl I used to chum around with at school and eat lunch with.  I stayed way from the rest.  She was about my age but she wasn’t bashful.  I guess at home her family was told about everything.

Anyways she could never keep up with me running.  I told her if her legs wasn’t growed together she could.  That’s how she found out I thought that way and she teased the heck out of me.  There was a big field of grain that came up close to the schoolhouse.  During break and noontime we used to run and run and play hide with each other.  One day just before school ended for the year she asked me to go out in the field, that she wanted to show me something.

After we got a ways in the field all of a sudden she fell down on her back, pulled her dress clear to her hips and started kicking her legs all around and said, “See, my legs ain’t growed together.  Them boys was just fooling you!” 

Boy, she sure stopped me in my tracks!  I was so bashful I felt like digging a hole in the ground to hide.  I was going to run back to the school but she got me to sit down after a while and told me a lot of things her Mother told her.  After that she used to ask her Mother different things and then tell me all about everything but it still took some time till I got over being so bashful around her.

But anyways, her Mother was teaching the both of us and never knew it.  We used to laugh about that. 

Her and I played hooky from school a quite a few days during nice weather.  We had our lunch pails so we used to meet just before we got to the schoolhouse and go off alone for walks in the woods.  We found different berries to pick.  We used to share our lunch.  Sometimes we just lay down and slept for a while.  We found a brook but we couldn’t swim so we just waded or sat in the water.

One day we ended up in the next little town but there wasn’t anything much there for kids, just farmers, horses, wagons and buggies.  We used to open the gets to pastures and let the farmers’ cows out then watch the farmers get them back in.  Anything just so we could stay away from school till it was time to go back home.

        One Fall she didn’t come to school.  I found out they moved away.  As the years went by I used to wonder if she thought of me and missed me like I did her.  For a long time I never did take up with anyone else after that, just kind of a loner.