A Country Boy Quits School

A Country Boy Quits School

Lao Hsiang

The boys read about a tea party and want to have one, so they agree to each contribute twenty cents so that they can send away for oranges and other exotic foods it mentions, and all of their families condemn them as selfish because they are asking for money for a frivolity.

The story starts out by saying that in the country a nine-year old boy is at least half as useful as an adult because he can help with several chores, so the family didn't want to send him to school. However, there was a proclamation that stated that any boy over six years old had to go or a family member would have to go to jail.

The boy goes to school and he brings books back, which the teacher has told him cost money. The family is concerned because they will have to go without to raise enough money for the books, and they are already losing work from sending the boy to school. They tell him that he will have to work very hard. He goes to school the next day before dawn to work hard, and finds that the school is not open yet. He is told to go home. He does, and his family is angry at him for not working hard. He goes on a Sunday and is told that they don't have school on Sunday, and they don't understand why that is either.

The boy goes to school and he brings books back, which the teacher has told him cost money. The family is concerned because they will have to go without to raise enough money for the books, and they are already losing work from sending the boy to school. They tell him that he will have to work very hard. He goes to school the next day before dawn to work hard, and finds that the school is not open yet. He is told to go home. He does, and his family is angry at him for not working hard. He goes on a Sunday and is told that they don't have school on Sunday, and they don't understand why that is either.

A Counrty Boy Quits School

The last straw comes when they boy is reading in his book "In my family I have a papa, a mama, a brother, and a sister." He is studying hard and repeating his reading often, and the grandmother gets really upset because she is not included in the family. The boy's father tells her not to be angry anymore, and that he would rather go to jail than to let him read this type of book anymore.

The pictures in the book aren't anything that they can relate to, and the text of the book says "this is my mama" and "this is my papa" with pictures that are definitely not anyone they know. The boy is sent to ask the teacher whose mama this is. The book also says things like "the ox tends the fire," and the boy learns later that they are learning about things that are made up.

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