Red Devils - 1 - The Assignment

It was a clear crispy day as we walked home from school together, and my friends and my sister couldn’t stop talking for the excitement of it all.

“Who will you write about?” asked Albertina Fridle. She was the eldest of our little group, and never seemed to have ideas of her own.  

“I thought Lincoln would be the easiest to do, and Miss Marble did suggest him,” said Josephine Secor, who was 17, the same age as my sister.

“Oh, everyone will be doing Lincoln. Or I should say everyone who can’t think for themselves. I know he visited here in Bridgeport - so perhaps your parents actually saw him, did they?” asked my older sister, Cora Sue.

“No, we weren’t living here then. We come from Illinois,” replied Josephine.

“I could have laughed aloud at the expression on Miss Marble’s face when you asked her about women,” she added. “Anyway, you are being very quiet. Have you thought of any famous women besides the ones you rattled off in class - Queen Victoria, Maria Antoinette and Sacagawea.”

 “Why don’t you write about Mr. Bennett? He might invite us to interview him in New York and take us around his newspaper office.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea, and Mr. Bennett is properly famous.   I think I will write about Pa. But going to New York and finding out more from Mr. Bennett is a wonderful idea.”

We had traversed the snowy streets by now and were just about at our front door.  We said our goodbyes to our friends who live a bit further down the road, and Cora Sue and I went in.

“Gracious me, shut that door as quickly as you can and don’t let all my hot air out,” said Aunt Lillie. No need to guess what she’d been doing because the house was full of the luscious smell of home baking.

“Grandma’s feeling a bit perkier today, so I thought we’d have a bit of a party later, and you can try my poppy seed cake.”

Grandma had her 76^th birthday not long ago, and although she is nearly blind, and fairly crippled with arthritis, she keeps in a pretty good humor most of the time. But Christmas is always hard on her because she misses the large frame house at the corner of Fifth and Main Street where she lived back in Wisconsin, and all the other family members we left behind too. We’ve been here almost two years now, since Lillie and William got married. He heard that there were job prospects in life insurance in the East, and with him having two brothers here, we made the huge decision and moved out here to start life all over again. I miss La Crosse too, but even though our winters here seem nearly as cold, they don’t seem to last quite so long.

After we got out of our school clothes we went back into the kitchen where we knew we would find Grandma in her favorite rocker.

“Anything exciting happen at school today girls?” she asked, as we both went over to kiss her on the cheek.

“We have a huge assignment which will count as 50% of our final grade. We have to write an essay of at least 10,000 words about What Famous Person I Would Most Like to Meet.”

“That sounds a big assignment. Have you decided who you will write about yet?”

“Mattie says she wants to write about Pa, but I don’t think she should.”

“Mattie dear, it would stir up such memories if you did.”

“He was famous. And I would like to meet him,” I said firmly. “I will give it a go, and if I find it too emotional, I will switch to Mr. Bennett.”

“But I wanted to do Mr. Bennett,” said Cora Sue.

“I know who you could do - Mr. Barnum, the circus man. Not many towns have their own circus man to interview. He certainly is famous, and I’m sure he would be willing to talk to you.”

“Would you come with me if he agreed? I couldn’t do it on my own.”

“Yes, of course, I would, and it might help me with my writing too, because he has some Indians in his show.”

“Which kind of Indians?” said Lillie, shortly, spilling her coffee and getting very agitated at the way the conversation was going.

“I don’t know, but you can’t blame all the Indians in the world because of what happened to Pa.”

“He called them Red Devils and that is good enough reason for me to stay clear of all of them. I really wish you wouldn’t do your project on that.”

I went over with the dishcloth and wiped up the spilled coffee.

“Oh, Aunt Lillie, come and sit down and rest your poor feet. Have another cup of coffee and some of your delicious coffee cake. You mustn’t get yourself all in a stew what with the baby coming and all. How long is it that you’ve got now?”

“That’s called changing the subject, Martha Grace Kellogg, and you know it full well,” but she laughed, and the subject was dropped for the time being.

But I knew I was going to do it. I needed to do it, for me, for Pa, for Mr. Bennett, but maybe most of all for the Red Devils themselves.

After we had finished I went upstairs to my bedroom and got out my notebook, and wrote down the title,

If I Could Meet Someone Famous, Who Would It Be?

by Mattie G. Kellogg, aged 16

Essay for English Composition, Bridgeport High School, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

January 5, 1880

*****

12^thJanuary, 1880

I couldn’t wait to get to school on Monday. We only have our English class once a week, on Monday afternoons. I had my plan for my essay all worked out, and knew that I could do a good job on it. But I had to wait until the last class of the day, English Grammar and Composition, taught by my favorite teacher, Miss Frances Marble. She also teaches French and German. I know that Miss Marble is 29, and she lives in a boarding house with one of our other teachers, Miss Mary Miner who is 26. Miss Miner teaches the practical subjects for girls - sewing, cooking, embroidery, practical housekeeping. The only other teacher, Mr. Charles Peck, is older, maybe 50 even, and he is the principal. He teaches science, math, geography and history. We have 74 students all together in the high school, which has been going in three rooms on the upper floors of the Prospect Street School since 1876 when public education became compulsory in Connecticut. There are plans for a new high school building on Congress Street, but that won’t be ready while we are still at school. Both Cora and I want to go to the Bridgeport City Normal School for teacher education next fall.

Everything started out well. We, the seven top class students with potential to go on to further education, were all keen to work hard, and prove to the others how much we could do on our essay project. Miss Marble suggested that the best student’s work might have a chance of being published in the special section of our newspaper, the Bridgeport Daily Standard.

“Now, students, settle down, and let’s talk about whom you have chosen to do your essays on. Let’s start with you Nelson.” Nelson comes from the richest area of Bridgeport, and plans to be a doctor like his father.

“I’ve chosen Abraham Lincoln, Miss.”

“Well, that’s just fine, but I hope you will make it more than just what we all already know about President Lincoln. I’m sure you can dig up some facts that will astound us all. And how about you Thomas?”

Thomas Congden is the oldest of our group, as he is 20, but he was not able to attend school for many years due to ill health.”

“I was going to do Lincoln, too, Miss.”

“Well, I don’t think that is a very good idea. Surely you can think of someone else. I will come back to you again at the end and see if you have had any more ideas. Now Cora Sue, who have you chosen?”

“I plan to do Phideus Barnum, Miss.”

“Well, he certainly is famous, and local as well. I look forward to what stories you will have to tell us about his life. Now what about you Fredrick?”

“My Ma said that she thought 10,000 words was way too much to ask of us, Miss. She said that was half a book and would take an age to write.”

“Did you tell your mother, Fredrick, that you have until May to do this work? And let’s see, that is 18 weeks. So let’s see how well you learned your arithmetic. How many words does that make per week?”

Fredrick thought for awhile and said, “About 525, Miss.”

“And how many words can you write on a piece of paper, do you know?”

“No, Miss.”

“Well, I will tell you. It’s about 300 unless you write very big, so that makes it less than two pages a week, or less than half a page a day. Do you think that’s too much for someone who is aspiring to higher education?”

“Well, no, Miss. I’ll tell my Ma that you said it was half a page a day. She will be okay with that.”

“Now, are you going to enlighten us as to what your topic for this half page a day will be, Fredrick?”

“Mark Twain, Miss. Did you know that he lives in Hartford, Miss? I think I would like to interview him personally.”

“That is an excellent choice, Fredrick, and we will talk more about your research methods in a few moments. Now, Josephine, whom have you chosen to write about?”

“I think I will do Sacagawea, Miss. I got the idea from Mattie last Friday when she mentioned her, and she might be an Indian, Miss, but she was famous, and I wish I could have met her.”

“Well, I think it would be more sensible, Josephine, if you were to write about Lewis and Clark’s expedition. I cannot believe you will find enough material on Sacagawea to write 10,000 words, but if you write about them, then it would be appropriate to mention a bit about her too.”

“Yes, Miss. I will do my best to make most of my words be about her, but I will mention them too, Miss.”

“Now what about your subject, Albertina?”

“I think I would like to write about Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miss. She is the one who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, you know.”

“Yes, I did know that Albertina, and she wrote many other books as well. I hope you will inform us about all of her work in your essay. And that leaves you Mattie. I hope you have chosen wisely.”

“Yes, Miss. I am going to write about my Pa, Mark Kellogg.(pictured above)”

“I don’t really think that would be appropriate, Mattie. This is a project to teach you methods of research. You already know all there is to know about your Pa, or you could find it out very easily. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but your father is not really famous in the true sense of the word. I want you to write about someone whose name will be known to nearly everyone, say 100 years from now all over the world, for example in England. Do you really think that people in London in 1980 will know who Mark Kellogg was? I don’t. But you do know the name that they will recognise, and that is General George Custer. So Mattie, I think you should write about General Custer, and include bits about your father in it. Would that suit?”

“I don’t like the sound of General Custer much. I know my Pa liked him, but he seemed a pretty stupid man to me,” I said.

“Well, stupid or not, he did a lot of things in his life that he will be remembered for - as well as getting massacred at the Little Big Horn. Make sure you bring in some of those other things too. But now Thomas, we still have to find someone for you. Someone that you have thought of yourself, I would prefer.”

 

“I could do Charles Dickens.”

“Well, let’s settle on that then. \now let’s concentrate on how you are going to go about doing this project. By next Monday, I would like you to do a rough outline, and also your introduction. Now, Kellogg girls, you come from a journalistic background. Tell me what should be in a good introduction.”

“Who, What, When, Where and Why, Miss,” Cora Sue piped up before I could get a chance to say a word.

“And don’t forget How,” I added importantly.

“Very good, girls. If they did something famous it probably meant that they had to overcome obstacles in their lives to achieve it. And now my next question to you is, how are you going to go about finding out about these people?”

“Books, Miss, at the library.”

“Yes, good, Thomas, and we are very lucky to have such a good library in Bridgeport. And you mentioned another way earlier,

Fredrick, and that was by interview. But some of these people will not live close enough for you to interview them, and many of them are no longer living. How else could we find out about them?”

“By writing to people who knew them - or perhaps their wives or children,” I said.

“And by newspaper reports too, Miss,” Cora Sue added.

“They might write letters to us, if they live too far away,” added Albertina. “I know that Mrs. Stowe lives in Connecticut, but I couldn’t easily get away to interview her, but I could write to her and ask her all sorts of things.”

“Yes, indeed, Albertina. We have Mr. Lincoln and General Custer, both dead, but both not all that long ago, so there will be relatives of theirs still around to write to. Lewis and Clark will be a bit more difficult.”

“My grandmother has a copy of their journal, Miss. She has lots of books at her house and I expect she will let any of us go and look through them, if I ask her.”

“That is a wonderful help Fredrick. Thank you. Now let’s see who else there is.

“Mr. Dickens didn’t die all that long ago, so some of his relatives might be willing to write to you and his publishers will be easy to contact. You will need to be getting busy to get your outline and introduction, of perhaps 500 words, ready for me by next Monday, the 19th. And that is about all we have time for this afternoon. Class dismissed.”