Bullies and Religion: Late 1920s, Early 1930s
- It's the weekend, and Chester and the other boys are in their dorm. The scary matrons have been replaced by a couple of older boys who are babysitting the younger boys for the weekend.
- The two boys order Chester and the rest of the little kids to line up. They tell the little kids to run around.
- As they run, the older boys throw baseballs at them. Nope, the older boys aren't any better than the matrons.
- Chester tells us that even at breakfast the younger kids are bullied by the older kids, who steal their food.
- At lunchtime later that day, Chester lines up to enter the cafeteria. An older boy, another bully, tells him that today they'll be served meat.
- Chester had better give his lunch to the boy. Or else.
- Luckily, Coolidge is around and yells at the bully. Chester gets to eat all of his mutton and bread.
- After lunch, the boys are called to afternoon class. The teacher asks a "yes" or "no" question and picks on Chester to answer. Chester says, "Yes."
- Uh-oh. It's the wrong answer. Chester is called up to the front of the class and the teacher whacks him with a ruler.
- One Saturday afternoon, Chester and some of his buddies head to the trading post.
- They buy marbles with a bit of money they make breaking up coal for government workers who have offices in the school building.
- At the beginning of each school year, Chester's father drives him, his sister Dora and a bunch of other school kids in a horse-drawn wagon to Gallup, New Mexico. There, a school truck comes to pick them up and takes them the rest of the way to Fort Defiance. Gallup is thirteen or fourteen miles from Chester's grandmother's home in the Checkerboard. Each year, Chester and the kids dread heading back to school in Fort Defiance.
- One winter, a friend of Chester's, Robert Walley, decides to run away from school with a couple of other kids.
- Chester misses Robert after he makes his escape, especially on weekends. One weekend, Chester goes alone to the trading post and pays to watch a movie.
- It's yet another movie about cowboys defeating Native Americans. Great.
- One day, Chester is sitting at lunch in the school cafeteria. A buzz goes up when Robert Walley, Chester's friend who'd run away, is marched in with the other runaways: they've been caught and returned to the school.
- The escapees are dressed as girls. Everyone stares at the boys dressed as girls in the cafeteria. Chester doesn't tell us why the escaped kids are dressed as girls: is it a disguise that they'd put on to avoid being caught? Or is it punishment for escaping? (Those matrons do have some twisted ways of punishing boys at the school).
- One day, Chester and his school friends decide to play hockey with tree sticks. A boy runs up to tell them that their football pants have arrived. Everyone runs to the locker room to get a look at the new pants.
- There isn't enough money for full uniforms, but the boys get pants, helmets, and some manage to get some protective pads, too. Football is their favorite game, ever.
- At church one day, Chester and another boy, Robert Adams, change into altar-boy vestments. It's Chester's fourth year as an altar boy.
- The government school that Chester attends wants the boys to be Catholic. The boys are made to go to church twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays.