Note: Bessie started school at age six but attended sporadically, as she had other chores to do. She was a capable reader, nevertheless, and recalls some of the first stories from her early reader, such as "Dick and Jane," and the story of Chicken Little. She also recalls her fear of switches. Children were forced to pick cotton through being threatened with switches, but it never worked on her. She wasn't a good cotton picker. She feels that children can be brought up better without whipping them or hollering and scolding them. She went to school sporadically from the ages of six through eleven.