Page 15 - Ninety Miles From Nowhere

School Days - Chapter 4
Ed Moore’s ranch looking North, farthest north cabin-school house, farthest south - residence.
A few days after my arrival at Dad Moore’s, and after I had rested a bit, Jeff and I went to Reserve, the county seat of Catron County, to discuss the school situation with the authorities. Without any difficulty at all we were given permission to establish a school in the Beaverhead area. We were warned however that only enough money would be forthcoming to pay my salary — the munificent sum of one hundred dollars a month. Everything else — the building, the furniture, the books and supplies would have to be provided by the community.
Ed donated a large one-room cabin in his yard, formerly used for a bunk house, for our use as a school building. The children and I made the furniture from apple boxes and orange crates. The children furnished
their own pencils and paper and I begged books from everyone I knew. One especially rich source of books was the schools where I had taught before, as they had to change their textbooks every few years and threw the old ones away.
Today, of course, fruit is packed only in cardboard boxes, but at that time everything was packed in wooden boxes. You could pick them up free at the grocery stores, or the clerk might pack a big order of groceries in them instead of in sacks. Between the two Moore families, we had more than enough boxes for all our needs.
We used orange crates (the long boxes with the dividers across the center) for making the pupil’s desks. We turned them on their sides and sawed out one-half of the bottom side. This left an open space for the pupil’s knees, and another space for his books. A 1x4 board nailed to each corner of the box and extending below the box made the legs.
For the seats, we used the smaller, stronger apple boxes, using the whole box for the seat, with a slanting upright nailed to either side and cross pieces for the backs. The top of each box faced the same way the child did, and could hold his lunch box.
Since this building had once been used for a bunk house, it already had a wood stove and a woodbox. Some one furnished a big desk and chair for me, and that was the total of our school furniture.