The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1899-04-07

better furniture could be found IN the
homes of some Of the poorest farmers.
Queer stories were told of old Jonas
Keightly's generosity and of his parsi-
mony. He was always shabby in his
dress and lived in such seeming poverty
and discomfort, but when Margaret
Crane was left widow, with five little
children, and was about to have the
mortgage on her home foreclosed, Jo-
mas Keightly had come, forward and
paid the thousand dollars due, and
would not even take the widows note
for the money, saying briefly that she
could pay it when she "got good and
ready" .-.
: When Cyrus and entered the school
house there sat Jonas near the teach
er's desk, with a tallow candle in his
hand, ready to light when the spelling
should begin. Jonas never missed a
spelling bee in our district or in his
own. It was his conviction that Or
biography was the foundation stone
of all education.
There were others who held to this
belief, and more attention was given
to spelling than TO anything else in
the rural schools of that day.
The little Six-Mile schoolhouse was
filled with pupils and their parents
when it came time for the spelling to
begin.
1t happened that Cyrus and I were
the only persons present from our dis
trict, and I had feeling that we were
not very welcome, because, as Cyrus
had said, the "Six-Milers'' had met to
'practice up for a contest with our
school the following week.
However, when it came time for them
to choose sides, Cyrus and I were
chosen along with the others, and the
spelling began. First we spelled with
"trappers," then we kept tally" and
"spelled across" and then the teacher,
sweet-voiced and pretty young wom-
an, announced that we would "spel]
down."
At this juncture of the proceedings
Jonas Keightly arose to his feet and
amazed everyone by saying:
''There has been some good spelling
done here tonight, very good, and I'm
delighted to see you improving so
much. But want to see you do still
better, so just to encourage you and
kind of put you en- your mettle, I'll tell
you what I'll do.''
70 %h7,,1c
pocket and drew forth a twenty ii ollar
gold piece. Holding it on the palm of
his big, rough and toil-worn hand, he
said:
''I'll give that to the one who stands
up longest in the spelling-dowr con-
test we're going to have now. Yes,
will! I'll hand it right over to the one
that spells all the rest Of you down.
This unexpected announcement Gre
ated great excitement. Twenty-dcllar
gold pieces were extremely rare in
the neighborhood, and it is certain that
not pupil of the Six-Mile school had
ever owned one, while Cyrus and I new
'er owned even five dollars at one time.
Jonas added before spelling began:
I'm doing this for the encourage
ment Of the young, and I don't want
anyone but those Of school age to come
into the contest. That will make it
fairer for the boys and girls"
This caused a number of young men
and women and some older persons
to take their seats, rather unwillingly,
and the contest began.
Now, I was not very good speller,
and, to my chagrin, I missed the first
word that came to me, and had to sit
down. Cyrus, by whose side I stood,
giving me sharp poke with his elbow,
Indicative of his disgust at my stupid
ity, before took my seat.
Cyrus was what some people called
"natural-born speller." He seemed
to spell by intuition, and not because
he studied harder or longer than any
of the other boys. He could "out-spell"
almost any boy in the school, while,
on the other hand. he was lamentably
weak in mathematics and was helpless
in the face of any problem involving
compound fractions.
Jonas Keightly's offer certainly put
one boy on his mettle, and that boy
was Cyrus Drake. He spelled boldly
and confidently. Twenty dollars in
gold meant so much to him. His eyes
had sparkled and look of determina-
ton had come to his face when Jonas
Keightly had held the gold piece out
in his palm. Cyrus had whispered to
me:
"I'm going to try for that"
The contest went forward amid SUD-
pressed excitment. No one whispered.
and the silence was so intense that
the lowest~voiced speller could be
heard in every part of the room.
When all but six of the contestants
had missed the words pronounced to
them and had sat down, Cyrus was still
standing. Miss Ware, the teacher, now
began pronouncing the most difficult
words in the book, and ten minutes
later every contestant had been spelled
down but Cyrus and his cousin, Louis
Drake, boy about the age of Cyrus.