Back Aa

Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill

Close

<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3> <h4>THE STING OF POVERTY</h4> 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 tearsangry tearsbut 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'sthat 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 spellerdown 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 endto 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 rightnor any other word rightat that moment. She merely shook her head and followed Julia to her seat, stumblingly, while a dead silence fell upon the room. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2