[¹] Copyright, Orange Judd Co.
VERY family furnished a candle. There were yellow dips and white dips, burning, smoking, and flaring. There was laughing, and talking, and giggling, and simpering, and ogling, and flirting, and courting. What a dress party is to Fifth Avenue, a spelling-school is to Hoophole County. It is an occasion which is metaphorically inscribed with this legend, “Choose your partners.” Spelling is only a blind in Hoophole County, as is dancing on Fifth Avenue. But as there are some in society who love dancing for its own sake, so in Flat Creek district there were those who loved spelling for its own sake, and who, smelling the battle from afar, had come to try their skill in this tournament, hoping to freshen the laurels they had won in their school-days.
“I ’low,” said Mr. Means, speaking as the principal school trustee, “I ’low our friend the Square is jest the man to boss this ere consarn to-night. Ef nobody objects, I’ll appint him. Come, Square, don’t be bashful. Walk up to the trough, fodder or no fodder, as the man said to his donkey.”
There was a general giggle at this, and many of the young swains took occasion to nudge the girls alongside them, ostensibly for the purpose of making them see the joke, but really for the pure pleasure of nudging.
The squire came to the front.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, shoving up his spectacles, and sucking his lips over his white teeth to keep them in place, “ladies and gentlemen, young men and maidens, raley I’m obleeged to Mr. Means fer this honor,” and the Squire took both hands and turned the top of his head round several inches. Then he adjusted his spectacles. Whether he was obliged to Mr. Means for the honor of being compared to a donkey, was not clear. “I feel in the inmost compartments of my animal spirits a most happyfying sense of the success and futility of all my endeavors to sarve the people of Flat Creek deestrick, and the people of Tomkins township, in my weak way and manner.” This burst of eloquence was delivered with a constrained air and an apparent sense of danger that he, Squire Hawkins, might fall to pieces in his weak way and manner, and of the success and futility (especially the latter) of all attempts at reconstruction. For by this time the ghastly pupil of the left eye, which was black, was looking away round to the left while the little blue one on the right twinkled cheerfully toward the front. The front teeth would drop down so that the Squire’s mouth was kept nearly closed, and his words whistled through.
“I feel as if I could be grandiloquent on this interesting occasion,” twisting his scalp round, “but raley I must forego any such exertions. It is spelling you want. Spelling is the corner-stone, the grand, underlying subterfuge of a good eddication. I put the spellin’-book prepared by the great Daniel Webster alongside the Bible. I do raley. The man who got up, who compounded this little work of inextricable valoo was a benufactor to the whole human race or any other.” Here the spectacles fell off. The Squire replaced them in some confusion, gave the top of his head another twist, and felt for his glass eye, while poor Shocky stared in wonder, and Betsy Short rolled from side to side at the point of death from the effort to suppress her giggle. Mrs. Means and the other old ladies looked the applause they could not speak.
“I appint Larkin Lanham and Jeems Buchanan fer captings,” said the Squire. And the two young men thus named took a stick and tossed it from hand to hand to decide who should have the “first chice.” One tossed the stick to the other, who held it fast just where he happened to catch it. Then the first placed his hand above the second, and so the hands were alternately changed to the top. The one who held the stick last without room for the other to take hold had gained the lot. This was tried three times. As Larkin held the stick twice out of three times, he had the choice. He hesitated a moment. Everybody looked toward tall Jim Phillips. But Larkin was fond of a venture on unknown seas, and so he said, “I take the master,” while a buzz of surprise ran round the room, and the captain of the other side, as if afraid his opponent would withdraw the choice, retorted quickly, and with a little smack of exultation and defiance in his voice: “And I take Jeems Phillips.”
And soon all present, except a few of the old folks, found themselves ranged in opposing hosts, the poor spellers lagging in, with what grace they could at the foot of the two divisions. The Squire opened his spelling-book and began to give out the words to the two captains, who stood up and spelled against each other. It was not long before Larkin spelled “really” with one l, and had to sit down in confusion, while a murmur of satisfaction ran through the ranks of the opposing forces. His own side bit their lips. The slender figure of the young teacher took the place of the fallen leader, and the excitement made the house very quiet. Ralph dreaded the loss of influence he would suffer if he should be easily spelled down. And at the moment of rising he saw in the darkest corner the figure of a well-dressed young man sitting in the shadow. It made him tremble. Why should his evil genius haunt him? But by a strong effort he turned his attention away from Dr. Small, and listened carefully to the words which the Squire did not pronounce very distinctly, spelling them with extreme deliberation. This gave him an air of hesitation which disappointed those on his own side. They wanted him to spell with a dashing assurance. But he did not begin a word until he had mentally felt his way through it. After ten minutes of spelling hard words, Jeems Buchanan, the captain of the other side, spelled “atrocious” with an s instead of a c, and subsided, his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming up against the teacher. This brought the excitement to fever-heat. For though Ralph was chosen first, it was entirely on trust, and most of the company were disappointed. The champion who now stood up against the school-master was a famous speller.