Molly and Tommy attended a one-room school with about 30 other children. The number fluctuated depending on how many of the boys were needed for farm tasks.
Bill only went for one day, before the family left the north, but his older siblings were quite willing to give him lessons.
Kae pointed out: "Bill tells of you writing in the dirt with sticks, doing your sums."
"No, I don't think so," Tom replied. "Maybe we showed him something in a patch of sand, on the way to school. Come to think of it, I don't even remember him going to school. Once, maybe."
"He saw the two of you writing your sums in the sand," said Kae firmly.
"He said that?" said Molly, with considerable disbelief. "No, no way."
"We took him," recalled Tom; "We took him once, I think. Maybe we took him a couple of times....but why would he remember that particular thing?"
"Well," replied Kae; "it must have been a marvellous thing for him to see."
"Maybe we just showed him," thought Molly.
They all mulled that over, and then Kae started to laugh. "It does leave the impression that you people had nothing but sticks and sand!" Everyone was laughing.
"Higher education!" proclaimed Tom. "You stood on a stump and wrote in the sand" [which obviously required a longer stick]. "And homework! I don't remember anyone ever doing homework!"
"Well," joked Kae, "you ran out of sticks!"
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