"
Those who fitted for college added Latin and Greek to these
studies. The children were sent to school earlier than is
the present fashion, and had long school hours and few vacations.
There were four vacations in the year, of a week each, and
three days at Thanksgiving time. Little account was made
of Christmas. The fashion of Christmas presents was almost
wholly unknown. The boys used to be allowed to go out of
school to study in the warm summer days, and would find some
place in a field, and sometimes up in the belfry of the little
schoolhouse. I remember studying Caesar there with George
Brooks, afterward judge, and reading with him an account of
some battle where Caesar barely escaped being killed, on which
Brooks's comment was "I wish to thunder he had been!"
I am afraid the boys did not respect the property of the
owners of the neighboring apple orchards, as undoubtedly
the better-trained boys of modern times do now. We understood
the law to be that all apples that grew on the branches extending
over the highway were public property, and I am afraid that
when the owner was not about we were not very particular as
to the boundary line.
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