One-room school in Breathitt County, Kentucky - 1940  Marion Post Wolcott

Summer Reading

"I heard the tenor of their uneven voices singing these familiar words:

The needle's eye that does supply,

The thread that runs so true,

Many a beau, have I let go, 

Because I wanted you.

Many a dark and stormy night,

When I went home with you,

I stumped my toe and down I go,

Because I wanted you.

I walked to the door and watched them. They had formed a circle, hand in hand, and around and around they walked and sang these words while two pupils held their locked hands high for the circle to pass under. Suddenly the two standing--one inside the circle and one outside--let their arms drop down to take a pupil from the line. Then the circle continued to march and sing while the two took the pupil aside and asked him whether he would rather be a train or an automobile. If the pupil said he'd rather be an automobile, he stood on one side; if a train, he stood on the other of the two that held hands. And when they had finished taking everybody from the circle, the two groups faced each other, lined up behind their captains. Each put his arms around the pupil in front of him and locked his hands. The first line to break apart or to be pulled forward lost the game."

--excerpt from The Thread That Runs So True by Jesse Stuart, an account of the author's experience teaching in a one-room school in the mountains of Kentucky in the 1920s and 30s. Marion Post Wolcott photographed in Kentucky for the Farm Security Administration in 1940.

Photo credit: Library of Congress LC-USF34-55696-D