The Idylwild School Bell

In an old school house on a dusty road in Kansas, this school bell reminded children for some distance that class was about to begin...and they had better be in their seats on time! Can you picture them scurrying along the rolling prairie?...the bell beckoning, it's sound dancing on the wind, carrying it along. Little girls hear it, and run to school, anxious to see their friends, the boys hiding amongst a clump of cedars to tease the girls-hoping they liked them too....and hoping the teacher would move them closer to that special girl that day.

My friend Jamie's grandmother once taught at "Idylwild" school, I imagine Mrs. Anderson rung this bell, holding on to the rope. Can you see her?--- tugging and greeting at the same time. Perhaps collecting apples from children as they arrived, patting their heads, or shushing them along as they told of forgotten homework, or a cow that got out the night before...spending hours chasing it and not having time to do the assigned task. It was fun imagining what life may have been like in the old school.

It will soon be torn down and the wood used to build a cabin for the family of the man that won the sealed bid...a whopping $200 for this piece of history.

The value of bell alone or the hardwood floor in the building far surpasses the amount he paid.

But the pieces that make up the Idylwild school will see new life, taking on a new shape in the form of that cabin....creating new memories for the gentleman that bought it. He and his siblings had attended school there. He knows it's value far exceeds the dollars and cents in the hardwood, weathered siding and the bell that once beckoned.

I listened as he re-lived school boy memories. But, even with all that-I know that the granddaughter of the Teacher wishes that the little building could stay there on the prairie forever, like a friend waiting for you to come visit one more time....beckoning in whispers carried on the wind across the Kansas prairie.