August in South Texas is hot. But in the '30s we looked forward to school starting after Labor Day. I still remember the smell of the Big Chief Tablets.
Starting School in August
August is called the "dog-days" of summer. August in South Texas is usually hot, dry, and depressing. By then, we were ready for school to start. Truthfully, I never wanted school to be out. But, we still had several more weeks of picking corn, hauling hay, or sometimes if the peanuts had gotten planted early enough, peanut thrashing to be done.
First day of school was still two weeks away. The temperature was reaching the century mark, and the hot sand was blowing across the yard, coming from the field near the house. Two weeks seems so far off.
That night it was so hot, we went down to the tank in the pasture to take a dip in the murky cool water. The marshy smell of the tank water filled my nostrils, and I liked listening to the frogs croaking in the night. They could almost put me to sleep, but the fear of water moccasins kept me on my toes. Feeling something slithering by me in the water, I jump out, hollering, "It's time to go back to the house.” We dried off and went up to the house and went to bed as the breeze came up from the south and I drifted off to sleep thinking about first day of school.
I could hardly wait. A week ago Mother had made out her order from the Sears, Roebuck catalog. We hung over her shoulder in the light of the kerosene lamp as she filled out the order form: 4 pairs of oxford shoes, brown, and then she would measure our feet with a piece of cardboard, sending along with the order 4 perfectly cut out feet, which was our shoe sizes.
Then there were orders for the socks, and underwear, and one ready made dress for each of us girls, and pants for the boys. Girls didn't wear shorts or pants to school back then. She picked out some pretty flowered and checkered and plaid material to make us dresses and shirts for the boys. Along with all the feed sacks she washed and saved to make dresses and shirts this summer, we would be ready for school.
When the order came from Sears and she opened it up, we were as excited as if it were Christmas. We tried on the shoes and sure enough all the shoes fit our feet perfectly. That method of fitting shoes worked perfectly. Now there was one week till school started.
School didn't start till after Labor Day back then, and that Saturday Mother and Daddy went into town to Floresville to the C & C Dime Store or to J. C. Merchant's Store to get our school supplies. We tagged along with Mother as she bought all the Big Chief tablets, bright yellow pencils, writing books, crayons, rulers, scissors and little composition notebooks. Oh, the smell of a Big Chief Tablet! When we got home, we each took our school supplies and I put mine under my pillow, so I could go to sleep smelling the sweet smell of the tablet and pencils.
Finally Labor Day came, and then it was Tuesday, the first day of school! The heat wave had finally broken, when a thunderstorm came crashing across the Tardia Hills and cooled things off the day before. Mother walked us up the sandy road to school and carrying my Big Chief tablet and pencil, wearing my new brown oxford shoes, and my new dress made from feed sacks, I felt like a princess! I couldn’t wait to get my new books. The readers were my favorite, although I loved the geography books. I knew my sister Elizabeth would love her Dick and Jane reader. She was in first grade.
For a special treat Mother let us bring our lunch, like everyone else. She had put it in a bright shiny syrup bucket, a lid on it with shiny handles. Inside we had a fried egg sandwich, and a piece of cornbread, with butter and syrup between the halves. We had water from the tin cups which we had lined up on the back porch of Kasper School, near the well, where the boys would draw water every morning and fill the big water coolers on the bench. There was a long row of nails with tin cups hanging on them, for each of us.
Mother took us to our assigned desks and kissed us goodbye and went back home. Now came the good part. Passing out the text books! I was ready for another school year.
September to me means “Starting School”! I still love the smell of Big Chief Tablets.
For a time, I perched myself on a flat rock, comparing my life with the Guyandotte River. Just as its tributaries replenish it daily, changing it in some small—sometimes great—degree, so have the day-to-day occurrences of life changed me. Like the ri
Starting School in August
