“Dear reader, I am happy to share one of my stories about school days with you. It’s a tale that is both nostalgic and entertaining, filled with moments of laughter, friendship, and mischief. So sit back, relax, and let me take you on a journey through my memories. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed living it.”

The old one room school house was warm that morning.  Laura and Reg, the folks that I lived with, also looked after the school, but today they were busy on the farm and couldn’t make it.   Usually they had all the windows open and the building swept out before anyone got there.  The oldest boys soon fixed the problem by opening the windows, while the girls swept the floors, in no time at all, things were ready to go. 
     Miss Jameson, had just started teaching at our school a few months ago.  Most of us kids treated her pretty good, but there were a few that liked to pull the odd prank once in a while.  They wouldn’t ever do anything that would hurt her or anyone, but scare, now that was a different story.  Only thing was, though, her being so nice, most of us didn’t want to play any tricks on her.  I kind of figured she had been lucky so far as no one attempted anything, but I knew that was about to change. There were two older fellows in grade eight, that usually came up with the ideas and then made the younger fellows do the dirty work.
     Well, on this day the two older fellows arrived at school earlier, and they picked up a Garter snake along the way.  They cornered this young fellow new to the school and told him to put the snake in the teachers top desk drawer.  The younger boy didn’t really want too, but in fear of getting picked on for the rest of the day, he said he would.  The snake was put in the drawer and pretty well the whole class knew about it, other than a few girls that were real friendly with the teacher.  If they had found out, for sure, they would have said something.
     We all opened our books and were sitting there waiting for her to open her desk. To our dismay, though, she never even went near the drawer, till around noon. Then it happened.
    “Lunchtime,” she said and started to put her things away.  We all sat there holding our breath. Thinking, now she will scream, jump from her chair and run to the other side of the room, maybe even out the door, like all the other teachers had done before.  The girls  that knew what was going on, were holding their hands over their mouth. The guys were on the edge of their seats, the teacher, well, she slowly reached down and opened the drawer.  But to our surprise, she just reached in, took the snake in her hand and laid it on her desk.
    “Well, she said, it looks to me like a few here in the class are interested in snakes.  So right after lunch we will get our science books out, and I will go over the different kinds. I am very happy you brought it to my attention.” 
     Every one that knew about it, just kind of sat there with a look of disappointment on their face.  The laugh, this time, was on us.
    No matter what they came up with, through the year, they just couldn’t scare her. Spiders, mice, more snakes, nothing seemed to bother her. She took them all in stride. 
     Later on we found she was raised in the country and while growing up she was kind of a tomboy.  I will say this, she was the best teacher that I ever had.  She taught all eight grades and never once complained.  Eventually, the older boys found other girls to bother, and the teacher was left alone to do her job.
    So there you have it, a day in the life of a country school teacher.