University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER.

“I 'LOW,” said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco
into her cob pipe after supper on that
eventful Wednesday evening, “I 'low they'll appint
the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos'
always do, you see, kase he's the peartest ole man
in this deestrick; and I 'low some of the young fellers would
have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to him. And
he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too.
But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's
turkey? Twenty year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggins,
that air Squire Hawkins was a poar Yankee school-master, that
said `pail' instid of bucket, and that called a cow a `caow,'
and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard what we meant by
'low and by right smart. But he's larnt our ways now, an' he's
jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd ever
been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married
a right rich girl! He! he!” and the old woman grinned
at Ralph, and then at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until
Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so frightful to him as to be
fawned on and grinned at by this old ogre, whose few lonesome,

blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. “He didn't
stay poar, you bet a hoss!” and with this the coal was deposited
on the pipe, and the lips began to crack like parchment
as each puff of smoke escaped. “He married rich, you
see,” and here another significant look at the young master,
and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed away reflectively.
“His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through
the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as `asperity' on it
a second time. But she couldn't read a word when she was
married, and never could. She warn't overly smart. She
hadn't hardly got the sense the law allows. But schools was
skase in them air days, and, besides, book-larnin' don't do no
good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never knowed but
one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she was
so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a
apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the
table-cloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos'
clean, too. Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But
I was goin fer to say that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny
Gray he got a heap o' money, or, what's the same thing
mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's better'n book-larnin',
says I. Ef a girl had gone clean through all eddication, and
got to the rule of three itself, that would-n buy a feather-bed.
Squire Hawkins jest put eddication agin the gal's farm, and
traded even, an' ef ary one of 'em got swindled, I never heerd
no complaints.”

And here she looked at Ralph in triumph, her hard face
splintering into the hideous semblance of a smile. And Mirandy
cast a blushing, gushing, all-imploring, and all-confiding
look on the young master.

“I say, ole woman,” broke in old Jack, “I say, wot is all
this ere spoutin' about the Square fer?” and old Jack, having
bit off an ounce of “pigtail,” returned the plug to his
pocket.

As for Ralph, he wanted to die. He had a guilty feeling
that this speech of the old lady's had somehow committed him
beyond recall to Mirandy. He did not see visions of breach-of-promise
suits. But he trembled at the thought of an avenging
big brother.

“Hanner, you kin come along, too, ef you're a mind, when
you git the dishes washed,” said Mrs. Means to the bound girl,
as she shut and latched the back door. The Means family
had built a new house in front of the old one, as a sort of advertisement
of bettered circumstances, an eruption of shoddy
feeling; but when the new building was completed, they found
themselves unable to occupy it for anything else than a lumber-room,
and so, except a parlor which Mirandy had made an
effort to furnish a little (in hope of the blissful time when
somebody should “set up” with her of evenings), the new
building was almost unoccupied, and the family went in and
out through the back door, which, indeed, was the front door
also, for, according to a curious custom, the “front” of the
house was placed toward the south, though the “big road”
(Hoosier for highway) ran along the north-west side, or, rather,
past the north-west corner of it.

When the old woman had spoken thus to Hannah and had
latched the door, she muttered, “That gal don't never show
no gratitude fer favors;” to which Bud rejoined that he didn't
think she had no great sight to be pertickler thankful fer. To
which Mrs. Means made no reply, thinking it best, perhaps, not

to wake up her dutiful son on so interesting a theme as her
treatment of Hannah. Ralph felt glad that he was this evening
to go to another boarding place. He should not hear the
rest of the controversy.

Ralph walked to the school-house with Bill. They were
friends again. For when Hank Banta's ducking and his dogged
obstinacy in sitting in his wet clothes had brought on a serious
fever, Ralph had called together the big boys, and had
said: “We must take care of one another, boys. Who will
volunteer to take turns sitting up with Henry?” He put his
own name down, and all the rest followed.

“William Means and myself will sit up to-night,” said Ralph.
And poor Bill had been from that moment the teacher's
friend. He was chosen to be Ralph's companion. He was
Puppy Means no longer! Hank could not be conquered by
kindness, and the teacher was made to feel the bitterness of
his resentment long after, as we shall find. But Bill Means
was for the time entirely placated, and he and Ralph went to
spelling-school together.

Every 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 Hoopole County. It is an occasion which
is metaphorically inscribed with this legend, “Choose your partners.”
Spelling is only a blind in Hoopole 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 Greeks figured Cupid
as naked, probably because he wears so many disguises that
they could not select a costume for him.

The Squire came to the front. Ralph made an inventory
of the agglomeration which bore the name of Squire Hawkins,
as follows:

1. A swallow-tail coat of indefinite age, worn only on state
occasions when its owner was called to figure in his public
capacity. Either the Squire had grown too large or the coat
too small.

2. A pair of black gloves, the most phenomenal, abnormal,
and unexpected apparition conceivable in Flat Creek district,
where the preachers wore no coats in the summer, and where a
black glove was never seen except on the hands of the Squire.

3. A wig of that dirty, waxy color so common to wigs. This
one showed a continual inclination to slip off the owner's
smooth, bald pate, and the Squire had frequently to adjust it.
As his hair had been red, the wig did not accord with his
face, and the hair ungrayed was sadly discordant with a face
shriveled by age.

[ILLUSTRATION]

SQUIRE HAWKINS.

[Description: 556EAF. Page 044. In-line engraving of a man, three-quarter length, evidently wearing a wig, also spectacles, with one hand in his inner breast pocket. ]

4. A semicircular row of whiskers hedging the edge of the
jaw and chin. These were dyed a frightful dead black, such
as no natural hair or beard ever had. At the roots there was
a quarter of an inch of white, giving the whiskers the appearance
of having been stuck on.

5. A pair of spectacles “with tortoise-shell rim.” Wont to
slip off.

6. A glass eye, purchased of a peddler, and differing in color
from its natural mate, perpetually getting out of focus by turning
in or out.

7. A set of false teeth, badly fitted, and given to bobbing up
and down.

8. The Squire proper, to whom these patches were loosely
attached.

It is an old story that a boy wrote home to his father begging
him to come West, because “mighty mean men got in
office out here.” But Ralph concluded that some Yankees had
taught school in Hoopole County who would not have held a
high place in the educational institutions of Massachusetts.
Hawkins had some New England idioms, but they were well
overlaid by a Western pronunciation.

“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 happifying sense of the success
and futility of all my endeavors to sarve the people of Flat
Crick 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 a 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. I think I may put
it ahead of the Bible. For if it wurnt fer spellin'-books and
sich occasions as these, where would the Bible be? I should
like to know. 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 of his glass eye, while poor Shocky
stared in wonder, and Betsey 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 which 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 until 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 on the other
side, spelled “atrocious” with an s instead of a c, and subsided,
his first choice, Jeems Phillips, coming up against the teacher.

[ILLUSTRATION]

JEEMS PHILLIPS.

[Description: 556EAF. Page 048. In-line engraving of a standing man in profile, slightly bent at the waist.] 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.

Jim Phillips was a tall, lank, stoopshouldered
fellow, who had never distinguished
himself in any other pursuit than
spelling. Except in this one art of spelling
he was of no account. He could not
catch well or bat well in ball. He could
not throw well enough to make his mark
in that famous Western game of bull-pen.
He did not succeed well in any study but
that of Webster's Elementary. But in
that he was—to use the usual Flat Creek
locution—in that he was “a hoss.” This
genius for spelling is in some people a
sixth sense, a matter of intuition. Some
spellers are born and not made, and their
facility reminds one of the mathematical
prodigies that crop out every now and
then to bewilder the world. Bud Means,
foreseeing that Ralph would be pitted
against Jim Phillips, had warned his friend that Jim could
“spell like thunder and lightning,” and that it “took a powerful
smart speller” to beat him, for he knew “a heap of spelling-book.”
To have “spelled down the master” is next thing to having
whipped the biggest bully in Hoopole County, and Jim had
“spelled down” the last three masters. He divided the hero-worship
of the district with Bud Means.

For half an hour the Squire gave out hard words. What a
blessed thing our crooked orthography is! Without it there could
be no spelling-schools. As Ralph discovered his opponent's
mettle he became more and more cautious. He was now satisfied
that Jim would eventually beat him. The fellow evidently knew
more about the spelling-book than old Noah Webster himself. As
he stood there, with his dull face and long sharp nose, his hands
behind his back, and his voice spelling infallibly, it seemed to Hartsook
that his superiority must lie in his nose. Ralph's cautiousness
answered a double purpose: it enabled him to tread surely,
and it was mistaken by Jim for weakness. Phillips was now confident
that he should carry off the scalp of the fourth school-master
before the evening was over. He spelled eagerly, confidently,
brilliantly. Stoop-shouldered as he was, he began to straighten
up. In the minds of all the company the odds were in his favor.
He saw this, and became ambitious to distinguish himself by
spelling without giving the matter any thought.

Ralph always believed that he would have been speedily defeated
by Phillips had it not been for two thoughts which braced
him. The sinister shadow of young Dr. Small sitting in the dark
corner by the water-bucket nerved him. A victory over Phillips
was a defeat to one who wished only ill to the young school-master.
The other thought that kept his pluck alive was the
recollection of Bull. He approached a word as Bull approached
the raccoon. He did not take hold until he was sure of his game.
When he took hold, it was with a quiet assurance of success. As
Ralph spelled in this dogged way for half an hour the hardest
words the Squire could find, the excitement steadily rose in all
parts of the house, and Ralph's friends even ventured to whisper
that “may be Jim had cotched his match after all!”

But Phillips never doubted of his success.

“Theodolite,” said the Squire.

“T-h-e, the, o-d, od, theod, o, theodo, l-y-t-e, theodolite,” spelled
the champion.

“Next,” said the Squire, nearly losing his teeth in his excitement.

Ralph spelled the word slowly and correctly, and the conquered
champion sat down in confusion. The excitement was so great
for some minutes that the spelling was suspended. Everybody in
the house had shown sympathy with one or the other of the
combatants, except the silent shadow in the corner. It had not
moved during the contest, and did not show any interest now in
the result.

“Gewhilliky crickets! Thunder and lightning! Licked him
all to smash!” said Bud, rubbing his hands on his knees. “That
beats my time all holler!”

And Betsey Short giggled until her tuck-comb fell out, though
she was on the defeated side.

Shocky got up and danced with pleasure.

But one suffocating look from the aqueous eyes of Mirandy destroyed
the last spark of Ralph's pleasure in his triumph, and sent
that awful below-zero feeling all through him.

“He's powerful smart, is the master,” said old Jack to Mr. Pete
Jones. “He'll beat the whole kit and tuck of 'em afore he's
through. I know'd he was smart. That's the reason I tuck him,”
proceeded Mr. Means.

“Yaas, but he don't lick enough. Not nigh,” answered Pete
Jones. “No lickin', no larnin', says I.”

It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite
side went down quickly under the hard words which the Squire
gave out. The master had mowed down all but a few, his opponents

had given up the battle, and all had lost their keen interest
in a contest to which there could be but one conclusion, for there
were only the poor spellers left. But Ralph Hartsook ran against
a stump where he was least expecting it. It was the Squire's
custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer spellers
rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy
words that they might have some breathing spell before being
slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled
them. He let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse.
There was now but one person left on the opposite side, and as
she rose in her blue calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the
bound girl at old Jack Means's. She had not attended school
in the district, and had never spelled in spelling-school before,
and was chosen last as an uncertain quantity. The Squire began
with easy words of two syllables, from that page of Webster, so
well known to all who ever thumbed it, as “Baker,” from the
word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these
words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody
knew that she would have to go down as soon as this preliminary
skirmishing was over, everybody began to get ready to go home,
and already there was the buzz of preparation. Young men were
timidly asking girls if “they could see them safe home,” which
is the approved formula, and were trembling in mortal fear of
“the mitten.” Presently the Squire, thinking it time to close the
contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, which
had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the
leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to
spellers as “Incomprehensibility,” and began to give out those
“words of eight syllables with the accent on the sixth.” Listless
scholars now turned round, and ceased to whisper in order
to be in at the master's final triumph. But to their surprise, “ole
Miss Meanses' white nigger,” as some of them called her, in
allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great words with as perfect
case as the master. Still, not doubting the result, the Squire
turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he
could find. The school become utterly quiet, the excitement was
too great for the ordinary buzz. Would “Meanses' Hanner” beat
the master? Beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips?
Everybody's sympathy was now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed
that even Shocky had deserted him, and that his face grew
brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In fact, Ralph deserted
himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl so long
oppressed flush and shine with interest, as he looked at the rather
low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white complexion,
and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface
under the influence of applause and sympathy, he did not want
to beat. If he had not felt that a victory given would insult her,
he would have missed intentionally. The bull-dog, the stern,
relentless setting of the will, had gone, he knew not whither.
And there had come in its place, as he looked in that face, a
something which he did not understand. You did not, gentle
reader, the first time it came to you.

The Squire was puzzled. He had given out all the hard words
in the book. He again pulled the top of his head forward. Then
he wiped his spectacles and put them on. Then out of the depths
of his pocket he fished up a list of words just coming into use in
those days—words not in the spelling-book. He regarded the
paper attentively with his blue right eye. His black left eye
meanwhile fixed itself in such a stare on Mirandy Means that she
shuddered and hid her eyes in her red silk handkerchief.

“Daguerreotype,” sniffled the Squire. It was Ralph's turn.

“D-a-u, dau—”

“Next.”

And Hannah spelled it right.

Such a buzz followed that Betsey Short's giggle could not be
heard, but Shocky shouted, “Hanner beat! my Hanner spelled
down the master!” And Ralph went over and congratulated her.

And Dr. Small sat perfectly still in the corner.

And then the Squire called them to order, and said: “As our
friend Hanner Thomson is the only one left on her side, she will
have to spell against nearly all on t'other side. I shall, therefore,
take the liberty of procrastinating the completion of this interesting
and exacting contest until to-morrow evening. I hope our
friend Hanner may again carry off the cypress crown of glory.
There is nothing better for us than heathful and kindly simulation.”

Dr. Small, who knew the road to practice, escorted Mirandy,
and Bud went home with somebody else. The others of the
Means family hurried on, while Hannah, the champion, stayed
behind a minute to speak to Shocky. Perhaps it was because
Ralph saw that Hannah must go alone that he suddenly remembered
having left something which was of no consequence, and
resolved to go round by Mr. Means's and get it. Another of
Cupid's disguises.