At last the girl from Hammond Corners tripped on:
“Sibylline.”
She made it “syb.” Mr. Parker had to show her the spelling book to convince the girl from Hammond Corners that she had missed. She glanced in the spelling book where Mr. Parker's finger pointed, and then burst into tears. At this an unknown young man, presumably from Hammond Corners, got up and excitedly declared the book to be wrong. Nobody took any notice of him, however, and Aunt Ann Lee was named the victor. She had spelled down the school.
IV—THE FIGHT
Ed CHURCH left Lide talking with the girls in the schoolhouse while he went back to the waggon shed to get Grey Eagle and bring him and the cutter to the door. As Ed was in the entry of the schoolhouse he was stopped by little Joe Barnes.
“Say! Fan Brown's out there waitin' for you.”
“What about Fan Brown?” asked Ed Church.
Fan Brown was the bully of Hinckley. He boasted that he could thrash any man between Bath Lakes and the Hinckley Ridge.