"H—o—s."
"Thunder!" roared Bates. Bates did know how to spell horse. He had seen notices of stray horses, and a horse was the most conspicuous object in Puddleford, excepting, of course, Squire Longbow. "H—o—s! that's a hos-of-a-way to spell hos!" and Bates looked at Strickett very severely, feeling a pride of his own knowledge.
Strickett said "he us'd the book when he teach'd school—he didn't teach out of his head—and he didn't believe the 'spectors themselves could spell Ompompanoosuck right off, without getting stuck."
Izabel's examination was something after this sort, through the several English branches; yet a majority of the Board of School Inspectors decided to give him a certificate, if we said so, as he was to teach our school, and we were more interested than they in his qualifications; and whether the Inspectors knew what his qualifications really were, "this deponent saith not." Strickett "sloped."
The next application was by letter. The epistle declared that the applicant "brok'd his arm inter a saw-mill, and he couldn't do much out-door work till it heal'd up agin, and if we'd hire him to carry on our school, he tho't he would make it go well 'nough,"—but the School Board decided that all-powerful as sympathy might be, it could scarcely drive a district school under such orthography, syntax, and prosody.
Next appeared Mrs. Beagle, in behalf of her "Sah-Jane." "She know'd Sah-Jane, and she know'd Sah-Jane was jist the thing for the Puddleford school; and if we only know'd Sah-Jane as well as she know'd Sah-Jane, we'd have her, cost what it might." She said "Sah-Jane was a most s'prisin' gal—she hung right to her books, day and night—and she know'd she had a sleight at teachin'. Mr. Giblett's folks told Mr. Brown's folks, so she heer'd, that if they ever did get Sah-Jane into that ere school, she'd make a buzzin' that would tell some."
Sah-Jane's case was, however, indefinitely postponed. Some objections, among other things, on the score of age, were suggested. This roused the wrath of Mrs. Beagle, and she "guessed her Sah-Jane was old enough to teach a Puddleford school—if she tho't she warn't, she'd bile her up in-ter soap-grease, and sell her for a shillin' a quart!—and as for the de-strict board, they'd better go to a school-marm themselves, and larn somethin', or be 'lected over agin, she didn't care which;" and Mrs. Beagle left at a very quick step, her face much flushed and full of cayenne and vengeance.
There were a great many more applications, and at last the board hired—I say the board—I didn't. But the other members overruled me, and price, not qualification, settled the question at last.
This was the way the machinery was worked in our school district, during the very early days of Puddleford. As the stream never rises above the fountain-head, education was quite feeble. But we do better now—there is less friction on our gudgeons, and if Puddleford should turn out a President one of these days, it would be nothing more than what our glorious institutions have before "ground out" under more discouraging circumstances.