After he got up, he went straight home. His mother took the tweezers and removed all the large thorns and many of the small ones. Then they took him to Mama because, they said, her eyes were better. She removed all she could see, which left the boy in fairly good shape, I suppose, all things considered. What we now know as kindergarten was unknown when I started to school. Beginners started in the Primer, and the Primer was not a grade in school--it was a book. As Webster defines it, "an elementary book for teaching children to read." We went to school to learn to read, write, spell, and work arithmetic problems--and to obey the teacher. We also learned many other things that were not a part of the regular curriculum and which were not necessarily sanctioned by those in authority. We grouped them all together and called them "recess." In my first year, I went through the Primer, the first grade, and far into the second grade. I was almost ready for the third grade at the beginning of my second year. According to my teacher and my parents, I was smart and well behaved. I was a good little boy. Even at that early age, the teacher granted me special privileges and I was in love with her. My love and admiration for all teachers, especially women teachers, went with me all through high school and college, at times causing my wife some displeasure. During that first year in school, one side of my face became paralyzed. I was an ugly sight, especially when I laughed or smiled. Half of my face would smile and the other half would just hang there, doing nothing. The doctor prescribed some red medicine that Susie carried to school every day and poured some down me ever-so-often. It tasted awful. I was glad it was a beautiful red color. I don't believe I could have stood it if it had been brown. Anyway, I slowly got over most of my ailment, but I'm sure it was hard for my family to get rid of the horrible picture my condition had printed on their memories. Unfortunately, my paralysis was not my only ugliness. I was born with a "wen" in the corner of one eye next to my nose. It was a lump about the size of the end of my thumb--that of course, depending on what age I was when you measured the end of my thumb, and how much of my thumb you included in the measurement. After all, how much of a thumb can you measure and still call it the end. At any rate, I was far from beautiful, even before the sagging of half my face. Not so with the rest of my family. Papa was stately, superior in quality, as generous as he was elegant, and he was a handsome man. Mama was a lovely woman. I can remember back to when she was about 33, and I can imagine how beautiful she must have looked to Will Johnson 15 years earlier. When I was very young, I liked to watch her do her long hair up into one big plat, then coil it round and round on top of her head and pin it so it wouldn't come down.