A True Story by Kathy Wendling This is a true story that I discovered in many little pieces. As I tell it I will tell you how I discovered the pieces. Piece 1: Newton, in his History of Barnard, Vermont, tells the story of a one-room school house in the mid nineteenth century wherein a male school teacher was thrown out into the snow and then locked out of the classroom by the older boys. This I later described as being a rite and a right of insurrection. It happened from time to time in many schools where the oldest students were often as big or bigger than the teacher. The school board then got together and decided the poor teacher must be replaced. Some one recommended a brawny young man from the Mt. Hunger area named, Dan Lillie, whose main qualification, according to the board, was that he was brawny and could defend himself against any number of young men. No mention was made by Newton about the man’s educational background which apparently was not deemed important. They hired Dan Lillie and after one major confrontation, the new teacher lived up to his advanced billing. He and "the boys" arrived at an understanding and discipline returned to the classroom. Behind his back, and later even to his face, the boys dubbed their teacher "Tiger Lillie." Thus it was that when the Civil War broke out, those same older boys all signed up and asked to serve in Dan Lillie’s regiment. Piece 2: That’s as far as Newton’s reporting goes. Since then I have found out that Dan Lillie attended the Green Mountain Liberal Institute in South Woodstock, an excellent private academy. Lillie may have been brawny, but he also had as much or more education than most teachers in his area. Piece 3: Later still, I learned that Lillie was wounded in the war and died in an army hospital before he could return to Barnard. Piece 4: Then, through the story of a quilt, I discovered that he was engaged at the time to a young woman who was making a quilt for her trouseau. When her fiance died, the grieving girl was ready to give up the quilt but her friends pursuaded her to finish it and the quilt, with its poignant tale, exists to this day.