Name:Emily Familetti 

            Am I doing the  right thing?

I wake up in my white floral bed sheets. I can here Miss Catherine calling me for breakfast. I go down stairs at 6:30 ready to go to class. For breakfast we have a wide selection of foods and all types of rare fruits and vegetables, really just the normal. I can hear the slaves out back starting to work on farming the tobacco. I hate the work my father makes them do. He also has some indentured servant which he lied to and said he “lost the contract,” even though we all know he locked it in his cabinet. We live in a big house on a plantation called Smith Plantation, with a separate school building on the land. My father is a prestigious farmer who makes a lot of money. I do not mess with father because I know he hated me from the beginning and give all the attention to my older brother, Jack.  I go outside  I my dress and head out to the big red brick building I walk past the servants who stare as I walk through the brown oak wood door. I can tell they are tired because of the sweat that runs down her face but I try not to shed a tear as I walk by them. When I am in the school building I see my neighbors already there laughing and chatting about how their plantations sell the most random things. There is only eight of us here and one tutor named Mr. William. I am Charity Smith I say to the new tooter as he glances down at me. I go to the back to sit with my friend Elizabeth. The teacher gets out a hornbook and tells us to copy the alphabet . As an English Girl that lives on a plantation I not really used to learning with anyone other then my brother . My dad says it is pointless for me to be learn to read and write because I am to to marry into a rich family anyway. Mr. William  looks  at me when I to gaze outside, I notice and get back to work. After this I going to play lawn bowling with my brother, nephews, and neighbors it’s really fun, but first we must all finish our work our else we will get in trouble.  We each got a packet for the day and I learning latin which is really hard. The first word I ever learned was, “salve,” which is hello…  3 hours later we are all still in class, my brother had finish and , like usual and I was on my last page. I had wrote the last answer and dropped my quill went to hand in my paper. Since I am 13 and my brother is 16 he has harder work, but for some reason he always finishes first. I ask politely to leave and Mr. William tell me tomorrow we will be learning to dance and that is one of the reasons I am going to the milners to pick up my dress. My father took me to town To buy a new dress for our evening parties which is always the best part of the day. The millner was a very nice lady, she had been very polite and treated us very nicely. I go in to see my blue dress ready on the counter. I pick it up and give it to my dad. We walked outside and Everyone stared at us as I walked along the gravel road with my dress. We saw our horsemen and walked towards him. we had two beautiful horses. One horse named grey  was a  gray horse  with spots. The other was  Tippy because he was a little clumsy, but he was still very sweet. We go back to the plantation. I can see one of the indentured servants, she is 13 I know because sometimes I with hang with her. I go to eat dinner and there is pork, beef and lamb chop on the table a little less than usual. I go towards the table in my dress and sit… when we are done eating I go down stairs to sit on the porch as I watch the stars. I see the indentured servant girl comes over to me and says she would love to learn to read and write. So I decided it was a risk, but she was my friend. I sat there almost all night teaching her to read and write. At sun rise I told her I would teach her again tomorrow until she could read and write. I remember every day I would teach her. When she was allowed to leave I never saw her again I continued my education and no one ever found out I taught her.  I remember that blue silky dress  I got because I still have it today. I will remember when I learned latin, “salve” The first word I learned. That day will stay deep in my heart and I know that eventually I will be able to teach another servant and when I do they will be freed and able to explore the world like am. Education was one of the best things to happen to me.

I wake up on another gloomy Monday at the peak of dawn to get to work. I get out of my bed and kiss my wife and eat the eggs that she made me. She says “hello dearest husband” I mouth the words because she says the same thing every Monday. “God bless your soul with those children today.” She sighs “your juice is in the bucket with the milk. In god’s name, I hope you don’t forget your cuffs this time” I make a fake laugh because I know it makes her happy. “Only god knows what I will do” I reply out of pity when I am really thinking to myself hope those pesky children don’t make a fool of me again. I gulp down my juice, put on my cuffs, fix my wig, and leave my little house hoping the time I return will not take too long. I have to wake up early because if I don’t then those little demons will take everything out of order and I can’t have that. I walk to the neighborhood school and see that there is a kid in there holding my emergency musket with all the other kids in the class. I know I am late because my room is a mess once again“Put down the bloody musket Peter”. He replies with that usual know it all tone “Or what Mr. Armaik I’m the one holding the musket and it’s fully loaded. What do you have?” he says this with a smirk. “Education” “ How in the world do you expect to get me to put down my gun with education” “You see this quill?” “Yes’ “You also see this ink bottle, correct?” “Yes” “Then you know that in the time it is going to take you to refill that thing I will be on my way home to write your mother a fine of 3 golden nuggets for rude behavior, so I recommend you put your musket down before I pick my quill up” “Well your door is shut now and you there is no paper for miles got no paper” “But what you don’t know is that I could have you unconscious in under 10 seconds just by hitting you with a hornbook” “What’s a hornbook?” he says very puzzled I showed him the pad with rope and the fescue. “This is a fescue” I say pointing at the wooden stick with the sharp point. “ I can use this to carve letters into my hornbook or to point to these letters. I bought it because you ungrateful peasants can’t afford them. And I hope you have enough common sense to understand that this is the hornbook. So if you really think shooting me is worth education, then go ahead.” I opened my arms preparing for the gunshot I knew was not going to come. Yet there was this bit of nervous and curious feeling and wondering if he would do it. But once I heard the large bang of the musket hitting the floor I knew he would not. I sent Peter home with the fine of only one golden nugget. Since he seemed to be so interested in the power of a gun, I sat down and wrote a letter to the general and told him to consider Peter for his ranks. It took some time since the quill wasn’t picking up any ink. I also had to continue the day but everyone was out of order since I was just threatened with my own weapon. Today we were scheduled to learn some astronomy, some poems and maybe teach them how to use the hornbook a little better than they might be using it already. With Peter gone, the room was quieter and I felt like I really grabbed everyone’s attention. I looked at the brick walls of my room and I walked over to the musket and hid it in the hole under my desk. I put the wood back onto the floor and looked at my class. They weren’t demons, they were just a bunch of kids of kids who were curious. It was my job to teach them, and so far I was failing. I gave a deep breath “ children, what happened today was my fault. I should be teaching you about the good lord and Christ. I should encourage you to do good for this land and God himself. I should not motivate you to take a musket and point a gun at good men like myself.” I looked around the room and spotted what I was looking for. “ Toby, come here and tell me what you want to be when you grow up” I watched him walk up to the front of the room and saw him stop to put down his quill. “ What do you want to be?” I whispered to his ear. He was a shy boy, his hands were always shaking. “I want to be a cook” he whispered. I wrote down his name on the board and told him to grab a hornbook and run off to the house of the nearest cook. Then when I asked everyone else what they wanted to be nobody knew. That was the reason they were so bad, the never knew anything else! I then taught the children about the good lord, his disciple, Moses, the House of Burgesses, John Smith, King James, and everything there is to know about this great colony. When I came home I saw my wife drying the clothes and feeding the fire. I had a smile on my face, so she kind of looked puzzled. She smiled back “Why, I haven’t seen you smile in ages, what brings those teeth out now? Did you have a good day?” I gave a sigh, but it was a happy one this time “ Wonderful”