It wasn't quite a matter of jumping out of bed in a warm room, getting dressed and jumping on the school bus outside your front door.
Dad and Uncle Fred had started to Sylvan when they were six and had always walked the 2 1/2 miles to school. Since there was generally no school from mid-November to April they didn't have much winter to contend with. When they started to Rexboro in 1930 this situation changed. Rexboro was on a regular school year schedule (Sept. - June) so they had to go in all weathers, and they had further to travel, and two young sisters to transport as well. Grandpa bought a pony who could pull the buggy in summer or the sleigh in winter, and this eliminated the walking, but not the work.
The school day routine started when one of them got out of bed, dressed, and went out to the barn to feed and water old Dan and do some other chores, then into the house for breakfast and out again to hitch up the sleigh. Then it was all aboard for school, three miles south and west, three quarters of an hour or so. At school the sleigh was unhitched and the pony put in the barn, leaving the harness on, giving him some feed and water, and there he spent the day. After school the same steps were repeated in reverse order. Almost every school day for four years, starting when they were 11 years old.
In later years their cousin Dick Duncan, who lived with them, and Carol Stevenson, a neighbour, helped make a sleigh full of kids. They were the only ones of the 25 or 30 students who brought their own horse to school, most walked and others were driven by their parents.