The Columbus journal., 1884-02-27

81 tell you, twenty-five dollars was Q
largo sum of,money in those days, and
when it was known that the prize had
been offered, there was more studyin'
tot orr old blue-backsd spoilers than
there svef had been before. We used
to take them home every night, and our
fathers and mothers would give MS all
the hard words, like 'daguerreOtype, )"
and 'phthisic' and receipt and those
with silent letters in them, and we
would spell them over and over again.
1--.sTho' offering of that prize set the
whole township in a azcommotion, and
nothin' else was thought Of or talked
about The. Red Haw and Jack Oak
tdeestrickts let it be known that they
would try for the prize, and they had
some good spoilers in those schools,
'speshly in the Red Haw.
HBut none of them had a better rec
ord than Harriet Hepner. and they say
that in those six weeks she studied her
speller night and day. .T
s.Folks who had passed the Hepner
house at midnight declared that
through the winders from the road
they had seen Harriet sitting on stool
up ag'in the fireplace, leaning her head
aRainst the wall and the squire sitting
| In his old hick ry chair, spellin' book
| IN hand and tallow dip in the other.
4ivin' out words to her-and ev'rybody
else was in bed. No wonder the girl
became thin and peaked. -
You see the squire fairly hated the
Red Haw decstrickt, and about every
body in it. The Red Haw and ours had
formerly been one deestrickt, and he'd
opposed their being divided; because
he owned lots of land in both deestrickts,
and he knew that if they were divided
there would be an extra tax for new
school-house. and a new school fund,
and it went mightily against the grain
for him to have to pay extra taxes for q
school that he did not gel any good OF.
sBut at the tOwn-meetin' the Red
Haw folks carried their point against
the old squire, and were set of as an
independent deestrickt. Always alter
that the squire seemed to bate them.
They laughed at him and twitted him
about havin' extra taxes to pay, so that
the squire really had some cause for
feelin' hurt. But then, there was no
excuse for his bitter spite, and snappy
ways towards everybody. E
"The squire had sister Gvin' in the
Red Haw deestrickt, but unnatural and
sinful as it was, he had not spoken to
her for years, and would not allow his
folks to look at or speak to her or her
children.
1.-The poor woman had. in the first
place. married against the squire 5
wishes. That angered him. Still he
spoke to her when he met her, though
| they did not visit back and forth any.
SMr. Waitely, the squire's brother
in-law, was the one that first suggested
the dividin' of the deestrickt, and did
more to bring it about than any other
man; which was natural, for the dees-
trickt was SO big and the school-hOuse
SO far off that the Waitely children
could not go to school in the winter
time. -.
/ s.But that didn't make the least differ
ence to Squire Hepner. He was furi-
ously angry with Waitely. and on town
meetin' day he and Waite!y had some
dreadful hard words.
siOf course, Mrs. Waitely sided with
her husband, and from that day the
squire turned from his own kin. He
never spoke to them again, and treated
them as if they were the dirt under his
feet; and that, too, after MIR. Waitely
died. -...-
The poor man got caught under q
fallin' tree and was killed, leayin' his
widow with four children, and nothin'
but shabby roof over Their heads and
three or four acres of scrubby land.
s.She had fearfully hard time
in tryin' to support herself and her
children, but the squire never
helped her. And there We're times
when she and her children would have
been on the county if it had not been
for her kind-hearted neighbors.
''To make things worse, her Oldest
child, little Sam, was cripple-hump-
backed aud crippled in one leg-so that
he had to walk with crutch. Of
course, he wasn't any help to his
mother on the place. But she was try
in to educate him, KNOWN that he
never could do any physical work.
1T kept the poor woman hard at
work night and day, tryin' to buy books
and clothes for Sam, to keep him in
L L
boy and quick to learn, though he was
a psle-faced, shy, quiet little soul, with
the pitifulest big eyes and the oldest
face for a boy ever saw.
"Well, the spellin' bee excitement
became more and more intense as the
time drew near; and when the night at
last came the old Four-Mile school
house was sight to see.
"The night was one of the clearest 1
ever remember. The stars shone like
bright lamps in the sky. The sleighing
was good. and the air sharp enough to
stir the blood, and if possible still more
to stimulate the boys and girls. A lot
of the boys had borrowed pair of sled
runners and put big wagon-box on
them. Then plenty of straw was put
in the box, and about twenty of us.
boys and girls, piled in, with lots of
quilts and buffalo robes and warm
shawls.
Il had my first beau that night. His
name was Azraiel Whitehead, and of
all awkward boys he was the awkward
est. think / was the first girl he had
ever asked to accompany him to any
Il kdtiaCkAu Aus INV, l. huOW uC lcll utt
on his back tryin' to help me out of the
sled, and he let me 60 head-first into a
snow-bank.
Il remember that his handkerchief
was wet with cinnamon drops, and that
he gave me handful of peppermint aud
cloves.
Il remember. too. how we all of us
went up and down hills and through
long white lanes. singin' and laughin'
at the top of our voices. We made the
old woods and the valleys ring. Yes,
and the sled upset. too, and We were ali
thrown out in a ditch.
81 remember how the edge of the
wagon-box caught my beau'S big feet
under it. and thou ght l should cry
from modification when he Law there
and actually bawled and snitiied l
was so put out about it that wouldn't t
sit by him after we got into the sled, or
speak to him afterwards
s'When we got to the school-house