THE STING OF POVERTY
At first Miss Cramp's "giving out" of the words was like repeated
volleys of small-arms in this orthographical battle. Every pupil well
knew the pages of two-syllable words beginning, "baker, maker, poker,
broker, quaker, shaker" and even the boys rattled these off, grinning
the while in a most sheepish fashion at their elder brothers or their
women-folk, who beamed in pride upon them until such lists as "food,
soup, meat, bread, dough, butter" bowled over the more shaky ones.
The first failures (and usually upon comparatively easy words) were
greeted with some laughter, and the ridiculed spellers sought their
seats with hanging heads. By and by, however, the failures were not
all at the bottom of the class; here and there such lists as "inane,
profane, humane, insane, mundane, urbane," or, "staid, unlaid,
mermaid, prayed, weighed, portrayed" began to pick out uncertain ones
the entire length of the line.
Miss Cramp shot out word after word, her spectacles gleaming and her
eyes twinkling. The grim little smile upon her lips when one big girl
above Ruth went down before "forswear," spelling it with an extra "e,"
showed that the teacher considered the miss deserved to fail because
of her heedlessness. Then, when she reached the list ending in "ay, ey
and eigh" they fell like ripe huckleberries all down the line.
"Inveigh" dropped so many that it was indeed a massacre, and some of
the nervous spellers got together such weird combinations of letters
to represent that single word that the audience was soon in a very
hilarious state.
"Move up," commanded Miss Cramp to the pupils left standing, and there
was a great clumping of feet as the line closed up. Not more than two
dozen were standing by this time, and half an hour had not passed. But
after that it was another story. The good spellers remained. They
spelled carefully and quietly and a hush fell upon the whole room as
Miss Cramp gave out the words with less haste and more precision.
The "seeds," as all the children called the puzzling list, floored
two, and several of the best spellers had to think carefully while the
list was being given out: "proceed, succeed, exceed, accede, secede,
recede, impede, precede, concede, antecede, intercede, supersede."
Fortunately Ruth, who now kept her eyes upon Miss Cramp's face,
spelled carefully and correctly, without any sign of hesitancy. The
match went on then, for page after page, without a pupil failing.
Perhaps there was hesitation at times, but Miss Cramp gave any
deserving scholar ample time.
Page after page of the spelling-book was turned. That tricksey little
list of "goblin, problem, conduct, rocket, pontiff, compact, prospect,
ostrich" finally left but three scholars between Ruth and Julia at the
head of the class. One of these was Oliver Shortsleeves, a French
Canadian lad whose parents had Anglicised their name when they came
down into New York State. He was as sharp as could be and he had
pushed Julia Semple and Rosa Ball hard before in the spelling matches.
But he was the only boy left standing within the next few minutes, and
again the pupils moved up. There were but fifteen of them. Rosa Ball
came next to Ruth, below her, and the girl from the Red Mill knew very
well that Miss Ball would only be too delighted to spell her, Ruth,
down.
Indeed, when Ruth waited a moment before spelling "seraglio," Rosa in
her haste blurted out the word, and Julia smiled and there was a
little rustle of expectancy. It was evident that many of the scholars,
as well as the audience, thought Ruth had failed.
"Wait!" exclaimed Miss Cramp, sharply. "Did I pass that word to you,
Rosa?"
"No, ma'am; but I thought..."
"Never mind what you thought. You know the rule well enough," said
Miss Cramp. "That will be your word, and I will give Ruth Fielding
another. Spell 'seraglio' again, Rosa."
"'S e r a l g i o'," spelled Rosa.
"I thought in your haste to get ahead of Ruth you spelled it wrongly,
Rosa," said Miss Cramp, calmly. "You may go down. Next--'Seraglio.'"
Miss Ball went down in tears--angry tears--but there was not much
sympathy shown her by the audience, and little by her fellow-pupils.
It was soon seen that there was some sort of rivalry between Ruth and
Julia, and that the girl from the Red Mill had not been treated
fairly.
Oliver Shortsleeves became sadly twisted up after hearing those
immediately before him spell in succession "schooner, tetrarch,
pibroch and anarchy" and tried to spell "architrave" with so many
letters that he would have needed no more to have spelled it twice
over. So Ruth then became fourth in the line. She continued to spell
carefully and serenely. Nothing disturbed her poise, for she neither
looked around the room nor gave heed to anything that went on save
Miss Cramp's distinctly uttered words.
On and on went the steady voice of Miss Cramp. She bowled over one
pupil with "microcosm," another the next minute with "metonymy ";
"nymphean" and "naphtha" sent two more to their seats; while the
silent "m" in "mnemonics" cut a most fearful swath in the remainder,
so that after the smoke of that bomb was dissipated only Julia, Ruth,
and two others stood of all the class.
Julia Semple had darted many angry glances et Ruth since the cutting
down of her friend, Rosa Ball, and her flaunting of the girl from the
Red Mill, and her scornful looks, might easily have disturbed Ruth had
the latter not been wise enough to keep her own gaze fixed upon the
teacher.
Helen and Tom were delighted and plainly showed their enjoyment of
Ruth's success. Now, as the situation became more strained, the
audience applauded when one of the spellers overcame a more than
ordinarily difficult word. So that when the girl next to Ruth missed
"tergiversation" and it passed to the girl from the Red Mill, who
spelled it without hesitation, and correctly, Helen applauded softly,
while Tom audibly exclaimed: "Good for Ruthie!"
This did not make Julia Semple any more pleasant. She actually looked
across at Helen and Tom and scowled at them. It had already begun to
be whispered about the room that the match was easily Julia's--that
she was sure to win; and Mr. Semple, the chairman of the trustees, who
sat on the platform with the teacher, looked very well satisfied
indeed.
But Miss Cramp had come down now to the final words in the speller--
down to "zenith" and "zoology." And still there were three standing.
Miss Cramp looked for a moment as though she would like to announce
the match a tie between the trio, for it was plain there would be hard
feelings engendered among some of the audience, as well as the pupils,
if the match continued. Her custom had been, however, to go on to the
bitter end--to spell down the very last one, and she could not easily
make a change in her method now.
A general sigh and whispering went around when she was seen to reach
for the academic dictionary which was always the foundation of the
tower of books upon the northeast corner of Miss Cramp's desk. She
opened the volume and shot out the word: "Aperse."
The girl standing between Ruth and Julia staggered along until they
reached "abstinence"; she put an "e" instead of an "i" in the middle
syllable, and went down. But the audience applauded her. Julia Semple
began to hesitate now. The end was near. Perhaps she had never taken
the time to follow down the rows of words in the dictionary. At
"acalycal" she stumbled, started twice, then stopped and asked to have
it repeated.
"'Acalycal,'" said Miss Cramp, steadily.
"'A c a l l y c a l,'" stammered Julia.
"Wrong," said Miss Cramp, dispassionately.
"Next. 'Acalycal'?"
Ruth spelled it with two 'l's' only and Miss Cramp looked up quickly.
"Right," she said. "You may step down, Julia. It has been our custom
to keep on until the winner is spelled down, too. Next word, Ruth:
'acalycine.'"
But there was such a buzz of comment that Miss Cramp looked up again.
Julia Semple had seemed half stunned for the moment. Then she wheeled
on Ruth and said, in a sharp whisper:
"I saw that Cameron girl spell it for you! She's been helping you all
the time! Everybody knows she's patronizing and helping you. Why,
you're wearing her old, cast-off clothes. You've got one of her
dresses on now! Pauper!"
Ruth started back, her face turned red, then white, as though she had
been struck. The smarting tears started to her eyes, and blinded her.
"Julia! take your seat instantly!" said Miss Cramp, more sharply.
"Ruth! spell 'acalycine.'"
But Ruth could not open her lips. Had she done so she would have burst
into tears. And she could not have spelled the word right--nor any
other word right--at that moment. She merely shook her head and
followed Julia to her seat, stumblingly, while a dead silence fell
upon the room.