Things I remember about my one-room schoolhouse days

I remember my first day of school; when Mother and I arrived, there was only the teacher and another mom with her little boy, Carroll; they suggested the boy and I go play on the teeter-totter; I don't think either of us really wanted to.
At some point in my first year of school, I decided at first recess to slide down the teeter-totter as though it were a slide.  This turned out to be one of my worst ideas ever, since I picked up what felt like dozens of splinters in my buttocks, and I could do nothing but sit on the source of my pain all day long.  As soon as I got home that day, I told Mama what happened; she had me lay face-down on the couch while she removed the splinters one by one.  What a relief!
I remember, on bad-weather days, playing "Upset the fruit basket".  I loved that game.  Do children ever play that any more?  
There was a sandbox-table in the front of the schoolroom on the right; if we got our assignments done, we could go there and play quietly.  A little boy and I were playing there, and I just couldn't stop whispering to him; Mrs. Eighmy tapped me on the head with her pencil to shush me, and it broke my heart.  I loved my teacher.  
I remember us students singing "Who Can See The Wind" and "This is My Father's World".  
I recall a Christmas program where we sang, "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth".  We used licorice-flavored gum to cover our two front teeth so it would look like we had lost them.  
I used to walk home from school when the weather was good; I have no idea how far it was, probably a mile or so.  My mother warned me to never accept a ride from anybody because some murderer she heard of had lured a little girl into his car, cut her in pieces, and thrown her body parts out the window of his car, one piece at a time, as he drove.  So when the father of one of my schoolmates offered me a ride home, you can bet I refused!   
My mother had all kinds of horror stories to fit any occasion.  Like the one about some little kid that swallowed too much chewing gum and had to be taken to a hospital where they operated to remove the big ball of gum from his stomach; or the lady who bit her fingernails and swallowed the bits of nail she chewed off, and they lodged in her appendix and cause appendicitis.  
I remember taking bread-and-butter sandwiches as my school lunch, and Mother explaining to the teacher that we had other things to eat, but that's the only kind of sandwich I liked.  Mother didn't want anybody thinking she didn't feed her child properly.   
And that's todays walk down memory lane.  

Skinner School

The only reason I have pictures of Skinner School is that the magazine supplement that came with the Des Moines Register had an article about the school.  I've often shared the pictures contained in the article, but it occurred to me that my readers might like to see the articles.  Just click on them to make them large enough to read (I hope).  That's me in the bottom picture, second from the back on the right-hand side.