Maibelle McCullough Mouton:
Remembering With Joy

I shall always remember and be grateful that I lived in a day of respect and courtesy. In that grammar school there were eight grades, which means there were thirteen year boys present. They played on one side of the school yard and the girls played on the other. When the bell rang, they lined up, boys on one side, girls on the other and marched up the steps into the building, falling into step as they heard the music. Those eighth graders swung around the heating unit in middle of that wide hall and went up the front stairs. Other grades went on to the center stairs and at the landing some went forward and other up the back stairs. Meanwhile the lower grades had entered by the side door and filled the lower rooms. I entered the side door to go into the third grade room, filled with pride and joy because I knew it was my sister Edith who was playing the piano for us to march! As cousin Lizzie had predicted, we were finding our way in this new and exciting world!

This picture was made in in 1908, the first year that we were in school in Little Rock. It makes me think of all the lovely things that Lizzie did for us kids, such as lining our bonnets with fluted lace and embroidering the collars on our school dresses! For several years I was undersized and Bopeep and I were dressed alike -- twins, as in this picture! Always we wore hats to town, to church and Sunday school.

I was assigned to the third grade! Two experiences make my first year in that city unforgettable to me. I asked mama to get me a box of crayolas. An orange box, I told her. Maybe she forgot or maybe she didn't see an orange box! Anyhow she brought me a blue box of American colors! I didn't say a word! I didn't even tell Edith! But I remember still the devastating dissappointment I suffered!

Bopeep would have cried and Gladys would have spoken right up. What made me the kind of child I was, I do not know! I remember that I stored those colors in the very bottom of my school bag, resolving never to admit they were mine!

When they when we had marched in from recess, our teacher held up an orange box of crayola and said "Did any of you leave your colors of the school yard?" I raised my hand! She gave them to me! I used them all that year! But I knew it was wrong. I had a guilty conscience! I cannot remember doing any thing wrong in all my childhood. We had played happily together, and shared willingly -- but this was something else!

Every golden sunset flaming in the western sky, told me did God was on His Throne and that He was angry with me. I knew that mama and all my sisters could go to heaven but I couldn't go! I was young enough to wonder if I could slip in on the other side of mama, for her skirts were floor length and maybe the eye of God wouldn't see me!

How thankful we must always be for ministers who take time to present the Savior -- to assure the unhappy ones that the Door is always open -- Jesus will receive you, forgive you, and remould you! What a message for a lost world or a lost little girl! In the church I heard that message and received my Savior!

In that third grade I met another terrible problem! In arithmetic we were doing long problems in addition, five row of four numbers, and my answers were always wrong! My papers came back with a big red zero! And my report card had a final F in arithmetic. I would have to do the third grade over!

Mama was upset. She knew that I was a good reader, far ahead of my class, and I had good grades did all my other subjects! But now I would be in the third grade forever because I couldn't add! It didn't make sense to her! She located a teacher who would take pupils for the summer and enrolled me with her, explaining that I was smart enough but I couldn't add! I remember that I wore a blue linen dress and went on the streetcar, thinking what a pity it was that we would miss our summer in Alicia, all because I couldn't add! She was very kind and friendly, saying she would like to watch me add. She gave me a long list of single numbers which I added easily! Then she gave me several columns of figures and made the discovery that I was beginning on the left side! No wonder my answers were all wrong! She gave me another problem of several columns, started me on the right side and thus, in a single session exonerated me! I went home gladly to tell mama that I wasn't really dumb! I was just left-handed! We could go to Alicia!