The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-04-15
The Spelling-School.

Speaking of a spelling-match recently
participated in by several of the leading
citizens of Chicago the Inter- Ocean says:
1t was fun-there is no doubt of that
but it was not the old-fashioned spelling
school after all. Most of them had been
there and knew how these matches used
to be conducted. They didn't go to Far
well Hall in sleigh filled with boys and
girls and buffalo robes. But they used
to 60 to spelling-schools in that way.
They can almost see the spawned horse
on the off side who was very lame when
they started, but who numbered up as he
travelled, until he ambled along as cheer
fully as four-year-old colt. The wind
whistled through his scanty tail like a
breeze through an Eolian harp, but the
bells drowned the melancholy refrain,
and the laughter of that jolly crowd half
drowned the bells. The parties chose
up" when they reached the implanted
schOOl-hOusc on the corners, whose an
cient clapboards had been worn into a
soft and plushy gray by the beatings of
the storm. We're you, dear reader, ever
one of the persons called to that honora-
BILE duty? Was Angelina Tarbox (why
not call her name right out while we arc
about it?) another? Did you take your
place behind the short desk, at the head
of the room, usually occupied by the
teacher, and proceed to call your re-
spective retainers? How was it at
such time? Did you selfishly choose
Miss Williams to sit next you, though
aware that you were weakening your
side by doing SO, and did Angelina select
young Perkins for the same reason? Or
did you both pursue the sensible way,
and choose your assistants on account Of
their ability, not beauty If SO, per-
haps it was Miss Plumb who took seat
next you. All, Miss Plumb! There was
o speller for you! She would grab up
erysipelas as Shanghai chicken would
pick up worm, and shake it to pieces
before the teacher had fairly dropped
the last syllable from his lips. Chro-
nometer, hieroglyphics, exclamation, and
all those four and five syllabled mon
strosities were mere playthings to her.
She laughed at them. She had natural
talent for hard words, and tossed incom-
prehensibility CONTEMPORARY over her
shoulder before she was seven. But it
was the small words that ,vanquished
her. She generally went down on tur-
with "up." It was sad to see this
Va I6AV yOuA6 AuVO1AVNV O0On4V
and conquer Kosciusko and kaleido-
scope, and then go down on ferule, or
icorice, or some such contemplate lit
tie thing. But the world is full of pit
falls, and it is not by falling over high
precipices, SO much as sinking into treach-
erous quicksands, that we are lost.
However, spelling-school is out. A
frowzy-haired boy, very long in the body
and very short in the legs, who stood
sway at the end OF the row, has spelled
down the school. He is slow OF speech
and ungainly of carriage, and when the
affair is over he buttons his scanty coat
tight around him, and trudges off alone
to his home, which is somewhere up there
in the woods, no one knows exactly
where, but you shall hear Of that boy
by-and.by. Then the tallow candles
which have burned away considerably
and melted away sgood deal are blown
out, the house Is shut up, the spawned