FOR MOST OF THE CENTURY: ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL (PART 10)

Jean Bell Mosley's new autobiography, "For Most of the Century," is only available in serialized form in the Southeast Missourian. Return each week for her continuing story.

I entered Loughboro, a one-room rural school in September, 1918. Woodrow Wilson was president. World War I was coming to a close. I was unaware of either of these conditions. My red-backed Big Chief 5-cent tablet, my penny pencil and what would my first teacher be like were of more interest.

Out the front door we went, Lillian, Lou and I, school lunches, tablets, pencils in hand. We followed the old wagon road past the barn lot, down a hill and across a creek. There we branched off onto a footpath that went up a hill, across a little clearing, down and up a small draw, Here we followed the path that led high up alongside the St. Francis River until we came to the first potential hazard on our journey, the swinging bridge.

Dad and Grandpa built this bridge, anchoring it, to my dismay, by a buried "dead man." This was as bad as Daddy getting "shot" preparing for World War I.

Later, much later, I learned that such a "dead man" was something heavy and metal, such as a big wheel from a binder or other big piece of machinery. This "dead man" was buried deep into the ground with two, long, heavy twisted wire cables attached to it. These cables stuck up through the ground, about three feet apart and were stretched across the river and there anchored again by another "dead man!"

Since the northern bank was much lower, it was necessary to build a tower so that the bridge would be straight.

There were steps from this tower descending to the ground, but the cables went on from the top of the tower before being angled down and buried again.

Planks were wired in place across these sturdy cables, stretching about 75 feet across the river. There were other cables, hand-high on each side to hold on to as we crossed the suspended, swinging affair which always seemed to ripple behind us as we walked across as if to urge us on. Chicken wire was attached to both sides to keep us from slipping off into the river below should the bridge be ice- or snow-covered which, it certainly was many winter days. Also, sudden floods brought the angry, muddy boiling water up to the floorboards and sometimes covered them.

After descending the wooden steps of the tower, we continued our journey alongside a field where in summer plump dewberries grew. At the end of this field and across a road that ran alongside, was the second hazard, a high, log, footbridge above a creek that flowed into the river. After negotiating this, we left our farm and entered a field belonging to neighbor Jess Stacy. Here, still close to the river, bank we had to make a new path each September which, by that time of the year, was usually full of cockleburs and other scratching, stinging, waist-high weeds. Sometimes, wishing to arrive at school looking as neat as we could, we would take off our shoes and stockings, if the day was warm enough, and put them back on when this field was traversed. We knew a foot-washing creek was coming up.

Through the strands of a wire fence we left that field and came upon this gravelly-bottomed, foot-washing creek. It was usually shallow enough so that we could cross it by stepping on suitably placed rocks. It flowed beneath a railroad trestle. Now it was our task to climb a steep chat bank to get up to the railroad tracks. We always paused here to listen for the morning train whistle coming out of Bismarck and going our way to who knew where. Some of the boxcars had Rock Island, Burlington, Chesapeake and so on printed in large black letters on their sides. We decided those places were where the train might be going, wherever in the world they were.

Once on the railroad track the going was easier, except that the ties were not the right distance apart for us -- too rare. Later I learned that models learned to walk gracefully by carrying a book on their head. If I had to give reason for my gait, I would have said that I learned to walk by railroad ties.

The railroad stretch that we covered was about two miles. It wound for some of this stretch alongside the river, between bluffs which we dubbed the Little and Big Bluffs.

On our way home from school, if there was still plenty of daylight, we stopped to play at the Big Bluffs, sometimes making bird nests of dried grass and sticking them way back into the crevices, just to see what would happen to them. Once Lou, wishing to make them more realistic, put some little round rabbit droppings into a nest! Her sense of the ridiculous, her good humor, practicality, patience and this-is-what-we-must-do-now manner compensated somewhat for her lame right leg, caused by polio when she was an infant. Numerous operations and a myriad of braces helped some, but she always had a decided limp. She made the three-mile daily walk, crossed that swinging bridge and foot log as well as any of us.

Mama and Dad could not caution us enough about getting off the tracks the minute we heard the train coming and waiting for its passage. Sometimes we could hear the whistle miles away and dutifully got off and waited, spending the time to more thoroughly learn the multiplication tables or our spelling lessons for the day.

Sometimes, oh, trembling heart, we saw a hobo coming toward us. Those were the days of such bums and their chosen way of life. Today they are on welfare. "Just speak and walk on by," Mama said. And that really was all we had to do. Not one, no not one, ever so much as asked for our lunches. Still we had a certain amount of fear, just because it was a stranger and we were far from home. Mornings, we might see a little thin column of smoke arising from a hidden cliff shelter somewhere on the riverbank, could smell coffee and maybe even bacon frying, but we ceased our talking and tiptoed on the railroad ties until we were far past the smoke. That the bacon may have come from our own smokehouse in the dead of some night, was brought to our attention later.

When we came to the cattle guards, a gated place along the tracks where a short strip of ties were set far apart, with deep spaces beneath so that it would be impossible for four-footed animals to negotiate, we had the choice of departing the tracks and walking down a lane alongside a goat pasture or continuing on the tracks. If we continued on the tracks we had to pass a gravestone. A gravestone, miles away from any cemetery. It had been there many years, a concrete slab, the name on it so worn we couldn't read it. No one remembered who was buried there. Rumor had it that it was someone who got killed working on the railroad and there being no one to claim the body, was buried right there beside the tracks. We grew quiet when we passed the gravestone. We were sad to think there had been no family to claim the dead person. Who then had put up the slab stone? Later, when studying Gray's Elegy, my thoughts always wandered back to that lonesome grave.

Perhaps I have a childish conception of heaven, but it is satisfactory. Some time I may round a corner in that dimension and, meeting someone, intuitively know the person or spirit I encounter to be the one that was buried by the railroad tracks.

A little farther along the tracks we came to the switch yard. This is where box cars were left on a side track to pick up railroad ties the local tie cutters furnished. Here we would pick up little squares of green tissue paper, wadded up and discarded from bills of sales. We had never seen such green tissue paper. But more exotic than that were the little squares of carbon paper we found along with the green tissue. It was our first encounter with that marvel of marvels. You could write on something with it beneath and the writing would come out on a second piece of paper beneath it. Glory be!

There was fear encountered at the switch yard too. Our cousin, Collar Bell, had once gotten his foot caught in a switch. Some workman had thrown it the wrong way and an oncoming train had cut his leg off at the hip. We stepped widely around those places where the rails came together in a V, even though there was no switchman around anywhere nor a train within miles.

Sometimes, at the cattle guards, we chose to take the goat lane. In the autumn months it was beautifully bordered by goldenrod, wild asters and sumac. Where such growth was sparse, the goats, white and silky-looking in the morning or afternoon sunshine, noted our passing and came over to stand and stare at us, even walk along for a while beside the fence, their odor opening our heads of and stuffiness we may have been feeling. The lane eventually made a sharp left turn and we could see the white schoolhouse ahead perched up on a steep hill. Yet there was another creek to cross. Again this was usually done by friendly rock placements but when it was flooding we had to go through nearby Mr. West's barn lot and cross on another foot log.

After this long journey, encumbered with lunch buckets and school paraphernalia, we felt it was some kind of cruel joke that the school house had to be placed up on that high hill. If the song had been written and we knew the tune then, we would have gone in singing in breathless voices, "Climb every mountain. Cross every stream."

The five-minute bell, rung by the teacher at the door, sounded at five minutes to 9 o'clock. We were always at or near the foot of this hill by this time. I don't ever remember being tardy. There was the County Truant Officer to deal with tardiness!

When the 9 o'clock bell rang, all those outside lined up in two rows, the boys in one, the girls in another and marched into the school house. There was no pushing, jostling, shoving. All was quiet and orderly. We were embarking upon an education -- an education which we knew was necessary to get on in the world.

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.