How we used to text in the stone age

That's nothing. I went to school in the mid 1800's and we didn't even have payphones, or regular phones for that matter. My schoolhouse didn't even have an address. It was just down the dirt road about four miles.

If my parents wanted to send my school marm a letter, I had to bring a porkchop to class and give it to Miss Baker. Then, later that afternoon, we'd tie the letter to my ole dog Blue's hind quarters and send him running off in the right direction.

He'd eventually get to the school house and Miss Baker would give him that chop. When he was distracted by the bone, she'd untie the letter and give it a read. If she had to send a reply, she'd tie it to Blue and he'd wander home with it eventually.

Course one time Blue decided to chase a coon up a tree and the letter came off in a brickleberry bush. We didn't find that letter for weeks, luckly it weren't too portant. But Blue sure did get a walloping for that one. He never did walk straight after that.

It seemed to work pretty well for us. That is, of course, until it didn't. One day I brought Miss Baker a porkchop like usual so she'd spect a letter to arrive. But ol Blue had to walk slower on account of his leg. He didn't get there til past nightfall. Miss Baker figured that no letter was a coming and didn't want to let that chop go to waste. So she made a fire and cooked it up and had it for dinner. You see, Miss Baker lived at the school house, as was the custom at the time.

Well, it turned out that Blue had grown customed to getting a porkchop. But by the time he got there, there was nary a bone to be found. So when Miss Baker leaned over to untie the note, Blue decided to take a bite out of her ankle.

Pa had to take Blue out back and shoot him on the orders of the sheriff. We burried him under a big oak tree so he'd be close to those raccoons. Blue would've liked that, I reckon.

As for Miss Baker, well, Doc did his best. He made her a compress made out of swamp mud and moss but that wasn't quite good enough. She died of the Devil's Fever 'bout two weeks later. The lord said it was her time, I spose.

I didn't go to school much after that. Some of the townsfolk was convinced that Miss Baker was haunting the school house and that they could hear her cries during the night. So they took it upon themselves to burn it to the ground. The sounds continued after that and it became apparent that it was just the wind blowing through the weeping trees. But the townsfolk still patted themselves on the back for killing a ghost.

Didn't matter much, I wouldn't have gone to school much longer anyhow. The War of Northern Aggression started a few months later and me being 12 years old and a man grown, well, I decided to take up arms for the Southern Cause.

I killed me 27 Yanks and wore their ears on a necklace til I was taken prisoner after the Battle of Yellow Rock Ledge. They took my ear necklace but they gave me some apples to eat, so it was a fair trade. These weren't sweet apples like we got today. No, these were crab apples and full of rot. Still, I had my fill of apples. Had the skitters for a week after that until they gave me some hard bread to thicken up my stool.

Now, I have naught good to say about that traitorous Abe Lincoln, but them Northeners treated me fair. I got decent food and regular visits to the camp whore. She had the Devil's Spots between her legs but none of us complained none. She soon came with child and we didn't knows whose fathered it. Didn't matter in the end though, a war camp is no place for a youngin. We took it out to the woods one night and left it for the coyotes.

That whore was no fun after that. All she did was cry, even more than usual. So the nights got to be pretty lonely. Fortunately the war ended soon after and I was free to go home. My confederacy money was no good anymore, but I found a coin purse on a dead Yankee on my way home. It had a silver nickle and a few coppers, so suffice it to say I was a rich man.

By the time I made it home, I'd already heard the goods news. That bearded louse Abe Lincoln had died for his sins. I spit on the ground twice to give ol Abe some water in Hell, as was the custom at the time.

I was surprised to find that all the slaves had been let go. On top of that, my grandpa, three sisters, aunt, and little brother had all died of the Devil's Rot. That meant more work for me in the fields. That's to say I got most of my education from the dirt and the trees and the plowhorses.

So, long story short, we didn't have cell phones neither.

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