The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

CHAPTER XI,

A NORTHERN TEACHER'S LIFE IN A SOUTHERN PLALNTATION SCHOOL -SOME INTERESI1ING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.
The Little Whitewashed Schoolhouse - How it was Furnished and Decorated -A Remarkable Out-fit for School Children -An Eventful
Morning - Six Body-Servants for Six Little Pupils - I Propose to Dismiss them - A. Storm of Indignant Protests - My Troubles Begin
" Spitfire " Bursts into the Room, with all the Plantation Dogs at his
Heels - A Sudden Uproar - Relief at Last - Disarming Black Pete -
Unceremonious Departure of all the Children to Eat a Coon Supper -
Another Sudden Exodus from the Schoolroom - Aunt Aggy Upsets
the Order of School - Arrival of the Weekly Mail - A Great EventMore Commotion - Breaking up the School -My Pupils Scamper
after the Mail-Boy, and Fail to Return - My Disgust and Anger - I
Decline to Remain as Teacher unless a Change is Made.
M ONDAY morninog dawned bright and clear, and for
IV.once the house was astir early, for school was to
open as near nine o'clock as possible. Young feet ran
up and down the stairways on all sorts of errands. Young
voices resounded through the halls and chambers, with inquiries as to the whereabouts of misplaced school property.
Several journeys were made to the kitchen in fruitless attempts to hurry up the breakfast. And yet it was nearly
ten o'clock before we were ready to start for the little whitewashed schoolhouse at the foot of the hill, that externally
differed in no way from the cabins of the house-servants.
It had been made exquisitely clean under Aunt Aggy's
direction. Laura and Mary had hung a few pictures on the
bare walls, and had curtained the ugly windows with white
muslin tied back with blue ribbon. The other children had
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