Miss Schofield, who was one of the kindest and gentlest of women whom the author ever knew, eyed Ephriam with a well concealed curiosity as she asked him what preparations he had made for taking the examination.
“Wull, Mis’ Sch’fields,” he said, “I’se got heap ob pencils and papur.”
“Yes, I see you have,” replied the examiner, with laughter almost bursting her throat, “but what I mean to get at is, what preparations have you made for teaching school?”
Quick as a flash Ephriam replied that he had sold his horse and rented out his farm.
The uproarous laughter which this answer produced was genuinely participated in by all present, including Ephriam, although he could not for the life of himself, as he afterwards stated, see what all the laughing was about.
Extending the examination a little more for the purpose of entertaining and amusing still further the board and its lone applicant, Miss Schofield was unkind enough to ask the definition of the noun, “word.”
“Word,” repeated Ephriam, now quite seriously perplexed, “why, Mis’ Schofiels, yo’ sholey noes dat I noes dat a word is someting dat yo’ sais.”
When she put the question of the fundamental principles of Arithmetic, Ephriam readily admitted that he did not know, and in a polite way gave the board to understand that he did not see the necessity for scholarship of a high grade for teaching “niggers what don’t ’no der A B C’s.”
Not long afterward, Ephriam, his wife and their four children were stricken with small pox—that malignant infection formerly very common in the South—and it was beautiful the way Miss Schofield attended to their wants during the period of illness and final death and burial of Ephriam. On the morning of the sixth day of the appearance of the dreaded malady, Miss Schofield appeared at the home with breakfast for all and was horrified to find the body of the father behind the door, his death occurring sometime during the night, unknown to the other members of the family.
