A teacher who had returned from dinner settled down at her desk in the one-room schoolhouse, then suddenly leapt from her seat with a loud shriek as a toad hopped off the desk.
It was funny to Harry and Will, the boys responsible for the prank, as the story goes, but their teacher had a variety of punishments at her disposal.
Poor Harry and Will.
The story of "Our Harry and Our Will" ends this way:
But after school the tables were turned,
And the teacher paid on with a will,
They cried as if their hearts would break
Our Harry and our Will.
On Wednesday, Nancy Zorena of the Monroe Historical Society showed Fawn Hollow third graders from Judi Ieronimo and Brenda Weir's classes what types of discipline may have been in store for Harry and Will.
One boy held his arms out in front of him as Zorena placed small logs on them. A student who misbehaved had to hold the wood until his arms grew tired.
Another punishment was to lean forward, placing one's nose against the "nose hole", the head of a nail in a desk, and be spanked with a stick or a paddle.
Zorena picked a girl to demonstrate another well-known punishment, sitting on a stool in front of the room while wearing a dunce cap.
All four of Fawn Hollow's third grader classes visited the 1790 East Village-Barn Hill Schoolhouse on Wheeler Road at different times on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Wednesday afternoon, children giggled as they chased rolling hoops across the lawn while playing an old fashioned game and another class learned how to write with pen and ink inside.
Zorena taught the children how to read from horn books, which are basic lessons on a wooden paddle. The paper is protected by a thin slice of cattle horn.
Outside, a group of children helped Zorena to raise and lower the flag on the flagpole. The American Flag has 15 stars, symbolizing the 15 states of the time period.
Ieronimo said her class learned how children used to go to school year-round, only taking breaks to help out on their family farms during harvesting time.
Zorena said the 1790 East Village-Barn Hill Schoolhouse was donated to the historical society by the United Methodist Church after Monroe sold off its one room schoolhouses to make way for the Consolidated School in 1935 (now known as Monroe Elementary School).
The schoolhouse had been moved twice before making its way to its current location on Wheeler Road.
Fawn Hollow students got a kick out of the little red outhouse in back of the school. In 1935 the opposite was true.
"In 1935, some kids still had outhouses at home," Zorena said, "so the Monroe Consolidated School's flushable toilets, that was an attraction."
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