Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1854-1943 . The Romance of the Civil War
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24. First School Days
BY ELIZABETH HYDE BOTUME (1865)

   ONE bright November morning I started to take possession of my contraband school. The air was soft as June; birds were singing; the cotton-fields were gay with blossoms which contrasted charmingly with the white matured bolls. My path lay through a grand old live-oakgrove. It was wonderfully attractive, with its great trees covered with long gray moss, through


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which the broad sunshine cast fantastic lights and shadows. From this I emerged into an open field. There was no regular path, and the walk over the old cotton hills was exceedingly rough and uncomfortable.

   The schoolhouse to which I was appointed was a rough, wooden building standing on palmetto posts

A SOUTHERN SCHOOLHOUSE.


two or three feet from the ground, with an open piazza on one side. When I first came in sight of this building, the piazza was crowded with children, all screaming and chattering like a flock of jays and blackbirds in a quarrel. But as soon as they saw me they all gave a whoop and a bound and disappeared.




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   When I reached the door there was no living thing to be seen; all was literally as still as a mouse; so I inspected my new quarters while waiting for my forces.

   There was one good sized room without partitions; it was not celled, but besides the usual heavy board shutters its six windows were glazed. This was a luxury which belonged to but few of the school-buildings. Indeed, these glazed windows had been held up to me as a marked feature in my new location.

   The furniture consisted of a few wooden benches, a tall pine desk with a high office stool, one narrow blackboard leaning against a post, and a huge box stove large enough to warm a Puritan meeting-house in the olden times. The pipe of the stove was put through one window.

   I believe this was the first building ever erected exclusively for a colored school. It was built for the colored refugees with a fund sent to General Saxton for this purpose by a ladies' freedman's aid society in England. All the contraband schools were at that time kept in churches, or cotton-barns, or old kitchens. Some teachers had their classes in tents.

   Inspection over, I vigorously rang a little cracked hand-bell which I found on the desk. Then I saw several pairs of bright eyes peering in at the open door. But going toward them, there was a general scampering, and I could only see a head or a foot disappearing under the house. Again I rang the bell, with the same result, until I began to despair of getting my scholars together. When I turned my back they all came out. When I faced about they darted off. In time, however, I succeeded in capturing one small urchin, who howled vociferously, "0! 0!"This brought out the others, who seemed a little


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scared and much amused. I soon reassured my captive, so the rest came in. Then I tried to seat them, which was about as easy as keeping so many marbles in place on a smooth floor. Going towards half a dozen little fellows huddled together on one bench, they simultaneously darted down under the seat, and scampered off on their hands and feet to a corner of the room, looking very much like a family of frightened kittens. Hearing a noise and suppressed titters back of me, I looked around, and saw four or five larger boys rolling over and over under the benches towards the door. Whether for fun or freedom I could not tell; but as the first boy sprang to his feet and out of the door, I concluded they all planned escape. But I halted the rest, and got them on to their feet and into their seats. Then I looked them over. They saw I was not angry, but in earnest, so they quieted down. The runaway peeped in at the door, then crept along and sat down by his companions. There was not a crowd of them, -- not half as many as I supposed from all the clatter they had made.

   All these children were black as ink and as shy as wild animals. I had seen some of them before, and the brightest among them had been pointed out; but they all looked alike to me now. I tried in vain to fix upon some distinguishing mark by which I might know one from another. Some of these children had been in a school before, but they were afraid of white people, and especially of strangers. As they said of a teacher on a subsequent occasion, "Us ain't know she."

   I had much the same experience with these children a few months later. Small-pox had broken out in the colored camps around Beaufort, and the commanding officer issued an order that all the children should be


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vaccinated. So one morning a physician came to my school for this purpose I expected him, but had said nothing, not anticipating a riot. The room was full, many large boys and girls being present. The doctor laid his bat with a small box on the desk and took a chair. I called the largest girl in the room to me, and I rolled up her sleeve, the whole school watching us with anxiety. The doctor took hold of her hand and raised his lancet; this was too much; she uttered a shriek, snatched away her hand, and darted out of the room, and the entire school followed her. The leaders dashed down the river-bank, and the little ones darted under the house. I called in vain, and frantically rang my bell. Miss Fannie, who was with me by that time, hunted about, and coaxed the few laggards she found; but they were not to be lured back to face a direful enemy who confronted them with a murderous weapon. There was nothing further to be done that day. The doctor went home, and towards night Miss Fannie and I went to see some of the people, to whom we explained the object of the doctor's visit. The mothers, who had been watchful to protect their children, now turned around and berated them well for their fears.

   "Don't you fret, missis. They is sure to be there to-morrow,"they said; and so they were, in full force. The doctor came again, and I explained what he wished to do, baring my own arm to show them the scar made by vaccination in my childhood. Now they were all as eager to have this done as they were reluctant before. Some of the boys came back and begged to have some of that little stuff put into the other arm. They evidently considered the bit of court-plaster a badge of honor.




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