TWO-ROOM SCHOOL MEMORIES GO ON AND ON – News From The Hills

I wandered today to the hill, Maggie
To watch the scene below
The creek and the rusty old mill, Maggie
Where we sat in the long, long ago.

The green grove is gone from the hill, Maggie
Where first the daisies sprung
The old rusty mill is still, Maggie
Since you and I were young.

A city so silent and lone, Maggie
Where the young and the gay and the best
In polished white mansion of stone, Maggie
Have each found a place of rest.

Is built where the birds used to play, Maggie
And join in the songs that were sung
For we sang just as gay as they, Maggie
When you and I were young.

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They say I am feeble with age, Maggie,
My steps are less sprightly than then
My face is a well written page, Maggie
But time alone was the pen.

They say we are aged and gray, Maggie,
As spray by the white breakers flung
But to me you’re as fair as you were, Maggie
When you and I were young.

And now we are aged and gray, Maggie
The trials of life nearly done
Let us sing of the days that are gone, Maggie
When you and I were young.

This was one of the saddest songs that we sung when we were just young girls. Now it is even more poignant since we have aged and know the reality of it. It was brought home today when I attended a family reunion with friends I have known all my life.

We were three little girls who were inseparable from the time we started to school– Jeuell Beth, Myrtle Belle and I. We played together all through grade school, and went on to high school together. The reunion was held at the Methodist Church which sat just below where Hagar Grade School was situated.

The old two-room school building has been gone for years, and a house is built in its place. But the memories go on and on…The rock where we sat and exchanged girlish secrets (and hid a love letter or two) is still there, although almost hidden by a tangle of briers, and overgrown with weeds. The big beech trees that grew in the school yard, bearing the biggest beech nuts ever, were cut down many years ago. We gathered them by the handfuls and ate them for a snack.

The old pitcher pump that provided the clear, cold water is gone too. We made paper cups out of notebook paper and drank deeply. The burning barrel is just a memory, but the smell of burning paper, broken crayons and pencil stubs is forever etched in my mind.

The school yard, packed hard and trampled by hundreds of running feet, is now covered with grass and weeds, and there is no hint of the bare ground where we played our games of “Longtown” and “Prisoner’s Base”, and the springtime marble games that even we girls played. Memories rise up like ghosts of the past and tug at the edges of my mind. There at the edge of the woods is where some of the little girls made their playhouses, carrying “treasures” from home.

So many things changed, and we have changed most of all. Jeuell Beth and I spent lots of time at Myrtle Belle’s home. There was a family of ten kids raised by a wonderful father. Their mother had died when the youngest was only a couple of years old, and the household was run by “Papa Early” and the oldest girls in turn. As each of the older girls got married, the next oldest took her place. Papa Early was so patient and kind, and we loved going there. They had a foot bridge made of iron pipe, and one day we three girls jumped on until we bent it almost down in the water.

We asked Myrtle Belle what her father said the next day, and she replied, “Oh, he didn’t say anything!” I’m sure that would not have been my Dad’s reaction! What I remember most about Papa Early was his testimony in church. He was a godly man, and always ended his testimony with, “Be good, little children!” He did a remarkable job of raising his children alone.

The three little girls grew up, married and had children. Time has passed so swiftly that it is hard to believe that we are great-grandmothers. Of course our parents are gone, and many of our siblings. We will all be 80 our next birthday. Time has taken its toll. Gray hair and wrinkles have replaced the rosy cheeks of yore.

Where are the three little girls? In the shadowy past, I like to think that they are running through the meadows, laughing and playing, and so happy. I read in Ecclesiastes this morning (chapter 1, verse 4) “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. I like the last verse in Ecc. 12:13, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

I came home from the reunion with tears, and a saddened heart. Sad because of the ones who were missing-loved ones who have already passed on and are no longer with us. Sad too, because the passing of time has changed the three little girls. We are now the generation that is passing away.

I searched the Scriptures and found this: I Thessalonians 4:13, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. Verse 14, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.”‘ Hebrews 6:19 confirms our hope, “Which hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.”

It is such a sweet assurance that this life is not all there is. In looking back, this life here is brief. Psalms 39:5 says, “Behold, Thou hast made my days as an hand breath, and mine age is as nothing before Thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.

GROW OLD ALONG
WITH ME
By Robert Browning
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be;
The last of life, for which the first was made;
Our times are in His hand who saith,
“A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God:
See all, nor be afraid!”