It was a solemn-faced little company which Miss Jewett overlooked, but she gave each an encouraging smile, as she told them to sit one desk apart in alternate rows. She explained what the work would be and herself wrote the first set of questions on the board.
The children fell to work with eagerness. There was not a sound except a sigh from one or another overwrought heart, the subdued rustle of papers, and the scratching of pens. At the end of the first hour the papers were collected. That much over, Elizabeth felt rather confident that she had answered all her questions correctly. So far, good.
Next came an examination in United States history. Facts Elizabeth was familiar with, and she expected to be able to answer every question rightly. She went over them carefully and began her answers, writing with precision and making an effort to use simple words. She went on swimmingly until about half her work was done, then she suddenly came to a halt. The date of the battle of Alamance. Alamance? Alamance? What did she know about it? For the life of her she could not think. She looked at the board and back again at her paper. She glanced at the clock. She looked over at Betsy. Finally she concluded that she would leave the question for awhile and go back to it when she had finished the rest. This she did, finding no further trouble. The time was almost up when she again cudgelled her brains. She became more and more nervous as the moments sped. Why was she so stupid? What was the matter with her that this thing had failed to stick in her memory? She felt desperate.
Betsy, looking up, caught the distressed expression and knew that something had gone wrong. Her own paper was about complete. She had remembered all about Alamance, even to the exact date. There it was plainly written: “May 16, 1771.” She wondered what it was that was troubling Elizabeth. Of course she could not ask, but she did so wish that she knew. Supposing Elizabeth were to get a lower mark than herself and thus lose the scholarship. That would never do. Betsy looked down at her neat paper which showed correct answers to the ten questions given. She looked over at Elizabeth’s sheet lying spread out before her, and saw a blank space which came, she guessed, in about the place where the answer to Alamance should be. Elizabeth’s two hands were buried in her curly locks, her eyes were fixed on the paper, but she did not make a move to write anything further. The hands of the clock were approaching the close of the hour; in another minute the papers must be handed in. As if knowing that Betsy was watching her, she turned around and gave her a despairing look. The clock struck the hour. There was a rustle of papers as the different contestants gathered them up. Betsy dipped her pen in the ink, hastily made a mark which converted 1771 into 1774 and took up her paper. Elizabeth hurriedly scribbled something in the blank space, feeling that an error was better than nothing, and followed Betsy.
The rest of the day went fairly enough. All were earnest and serious, and did their very best. At last it was over; the long dreaded moments had actually passed. With a smile Miss Jewett dismissed them. “I can at least attest to your having been good workers,” she said. “I never saw such very deep interest. I wish there was a scholarship for each one of you, but as it is I can only wish good-luck to you all. We shall see how it comes out by day after tomorrow, I think.”
Elizabeth and Betsy clasped hands as they went out the door. “It is over,” said Elizabeth, “and I feel like a rag. I think I did pretty well with most of the questions, though I did get rattled over the history. There was one question that I couldn’t seem to get, and I waited, hoping it would come to me, but it didn’t and at the very last minute I just put down something. Oh Betsy, I wonder if you know the date of the battle of Alamance. What did you put down?”
“I put down May 16, 1774,” replied Betsy calmly.
“And I said 1775; I wonder which is right. I shall look the minute I get home. I don’t see why they picked out a little unimportant thing like that to ask us.”
“But it isn’t unimportant,” declared Betsy. “It was really the first strike for freedom; it was in North Carolina, you know, long before Concord and Lexington and all that.”
“Oh, dear me, so it was. I remember all about it now. How very stupid of me to forget. It all comes back to me now, but, Betsy, I think it was even earlier than we have made it; I don’t believe either one of us is right.”