Excerpt from 60 Years on the Upper Mississippi: My Life and Experiences<br><br>Whatever education [received outside of the in struction I received from my father, I acquired at the little log school house under the 'hill, two miles from my home. After I was 12 years old I stayed at homein the summer and fall helping my father on the farm, attending school only three months in the' winter, and such winters as we then had - the snow usually three to four feet deep often covering the fences all out of sight.' The school house was made out of rough logs, the spaces between being stopped with mortar made from clay. The seats were made from pine slabs, the rounded side down, supported with stout oak pins. The writing desk was a rough long one, occupying the whole rear of the house.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.