2. CHAPTER II.
A SPELL COMING.
THERE was a moment of utter stillness. But the
magnetism of Ralph's eye was too much for Bill
Means. The request was so polite, the master's look
was so innocent and yet so determined. Bill often
wondered afterward that he had not “fit” rather
than obeyed the request. But somehow he put the dog out.
He was partly surprised, partly inveigled, partly awed into
doing just what he had not intended to do. In the week that
followed, Bill had to fight half a dozen boys for calling him
“Puppy Means.” Bill said he wished he'd a licked the master
on the spot. 'Twould a saved five fights out of the six.
And all that day and the next, the bull-dog in the master's
eye was a terror to evil-doers. At the close of school on the
second day Bud was heard to give it as his opinion that “the
master wouldn't be much in a tussle, but he had a heap of
thunder and lightning in him.” Did he inflict corporal punishment?
inquires some philanthropic friend. Would you inflict
corporal punishment if you were tiger-trainer in Van Amburgh's
happy family? If you had been among the human
bears on Flat Creek you would have used the rod also. But
poor Ralph could never satisfy his constituency.
“Don't believe he'll do,” was Mr. Pete Jones's comment to
Mr. Means. “Don't thrash enough. Boys won't larn 'less you
thrash 'em, says I. Leastways, mine won't. Lay it on good,
is what I says to a master. Lay it on good. Don't do no harm.
Lickin' and larnin' goes together. No lickin', no larnin', says
I. Lickin' and larnin', lickin' and larnin', is the good ole way.”
And Mr. Jones, like some wiser people, was the more pleased
with his formula that it had an alliterative sound. Nevertheless,
Ralph was master from this time until the spelling-school
came. If only it had not been for that spelling-school! Many
and many a time after the night of the fatal spelling-school
Ralph used to say: “If only it had not been for that spelling-school!”
There had to be a spelling-school. Not only for the sake of
my story, which would not have been worth the telling if the
spelling-school had not taken place, but because Flat Creek district
had to have a spelling-school. It is the only public literary
exercise known in Hoopole County. It takes the place of
lyceum lecture and debating club. Sis Means, or, as she wished
now to be called, Mirandy Means, expressed herself most positively
in favor of it. She said that she 'lowed the folks in
that district couldn't in no wise do without it. But it was
rather to its social than its intellectual benefits that she referred.
For all the spelling-schools ever seen could not enable her to
stand anywhere but at the foot of the class. There is one
branch diligently taught in a backwoods school. The public
mind seems impressed with the difficulties of English orthography,
and there is a solemn conviction that the chief end
of man is to learn to spell. “`Know Webster's Elementary'
came down from heaven,” would be the backwoods version of
the Greek proverb, but that, unfortunately for the Greeks,
their fame has not reached so far. It often happens that the
pupil does not know the meaning of a single word in the lesson.
That is of no consequence. What do you want to know
the meaning of a word for? Words were made to be spelled,
and men were created that they might spell them. Hence the
necessity for sending a pupil through the spelling-book five
times before you allow him to begin to read, or indeed to do
anything else. Hence the necessity for those long spelling-classes
at the close of each forenoon and afternoon session of the
school, to stand at the head of which is the cherished ambition
of every scholar. Hence, too, the necessity for devoting the
whole of the afternoon session of each Friday to a “Spelling
Match.” In fact, spelling is the “national game” in Hoopole
County. Base-ball and croquet matches are as unknown as
Olympian chariot-races. Spelling and “shucking” are the only
public competitions.
So that the fatal spelling-school had to be appointed for the
Wednesday of the second week of the session, just when Ralph
felt himself master of the situation. Not that he was without
his annoyances. One of Ralph's troubles in the week before
the spelling school was that he was loved. The other that
he was hated. And while the time between the appointing of
the spelling tournament and the actual occurrence of that remarkable
event is engaged in elapsing, let me narrate two incidents
that made it for Ralph a trying time.
