After this ceremony, the first thing to do was to get the children off to school. It was not a small matter when the list included William Henry, Edward, Mary Foote, George, Harriet Elizabeth, Henry Ward and Charles. Later on were added the names of Isabella Holmes, Thomas Kennicut and James. Now the dinner for each child was packed in a small splint basket, and after much business was gone through all were away to Academy or Dame School, according to age and ability. In winter William and Edward had their sleds--not gayly painted ones from the emporium as modern boys have, but rude fabrics made on rainy days out of odds and ends of old sleigh runners and any rough boards that could be fashioned with saw and hatchet. Such as they were, they served the Beecher family well, and happy was the day when big brother William or Edward would take the little sister to school on the sled, drawing her swiftly over the snow, her little charge, the younger brother, closely clasped in her arms. On Sunday mornings strenuous exertions were required, for besides going through the usual routine, Sunday clothes had to be donned; also, it was to be made quite certain that the catechism had been successfully and permanently drilled into the mind of each child. In her account of the life of her distinguished brother, Henry Ward Beecher, Mrs. Stowe records an early experience of hers in trying to teach him his grammar, and if she had equal difficulties in making him learn the catechism, she certainly had her hands full. “Now, Henry,” she would say, “_A_ is the indefinite article, you see, and must be used only with a singular noun. You can say _a man_, but you can’t say _a men_, can you?” “Why, yes, I can say Amen, too,” was the ready rejoinder. “Father says it at the end of his prayers.” “Come, Henry, now don’t be joking; now decline _he_.” “Nominative, _he_; possessive, _his_; objective, _him_.” “Yes,” said the young teacher. “You see, _his_ is possessive. Now you can say, _his book_, but you cannot say _him book_.” “Yes, I do say hymn-book, too,” said the incorrigible scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of his sallies produced from the teacher a laugh, which was the victory he wanted. “But now, Henry, seriously. Just attend to the active and passive voice. Now _I strike_ is active, you see, because if you strike you do something. But _I am struck_ is passive, because if you are struck you don’t do anything, do you?” “Yes, I do; I strike back again.” When Harriet was old enough to become the instructor of a frisky pupil like this she may well have found that the New England Catechism occasionally brought her to her wit’s end.