I had a darling old elf of a teacher in that Oxford, Indiana school. She loved all of her little students. She laughed with us and taught us all to read and we loved the stories she read to us. I made a lifelong friend that year. Her name was Juanita Hamilton. We kept in touch for many years, until we were both married. This was a same school building where my mother taught 4th grade before she married my Dad and it was also the school where I did my student teaching in l949 when I attended Purdue University

As evening came, Grandma came with a big comforter which she spread out on the floor. She stood me in the center of the comforter, pulled the four corners up to my neck and caught them with a long woolen scarf. She pulled a red, woolen cap down over my ears and Grandpa Charlie carried me outside through the gate to the Barn lot. There was the old red sleigh that I had seen many times up on the rafters of the red barn.

Hitched to that wonderful sleigh was one of Grandpa's horses with a harness of sleigh bells. Grandpa and Grandma got into the sleigh on either side of me and off we went down the lane for a Christmas Eve sleigh ride with the moon just rising and the sleigh bells ringing merrily breaking the stillness of that frigid winter night.