de'll do!

SPELLING DOWN THE MASTER

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON

"I 'low," said Mrs. Means, as she stuffed the tobacco into her cob pipe
after supper on that eventful Wednesday evening: "I 'low they'll app'int
the Squire to gin out the words to-night. They mos' always do, you see,
kase he's the peartest _ole_ man in this deestrick; and I 'low some of
the young fellers would have to git up and dust ef they would keep up to
him. And he uses sech remarkable smart words. He speaks so polite, too.
But laws! don't I remember when he was poarer nor Job's turkey? Twenty
year ago, when he come to these 'ere diggin's, that air Squire Hawkins
was a poar Yankee school-master, that said 'pail' instid of bucket, and
that called a cow a 'caow,' and that couldn't tell to save his gizzard
what we meant by _'low_ and by _right smart_. But he's larnt our ways
now, an' he's jest as civilized as the rest of us. You would-n know he'd
ever been a Yankee. He didn't stay poar long. Not he. He jest married a
right rich girl! He! he!" And the old woman grinned at Ralph, and then
at Mirandy, and then at the rest, until Ralph shuddered. Nothing was so
frightful to him as to be fawned on by this grinning ogre, whose few
lonesome, blackish teeth seemed ready to devour him. "He didn't stay
poar, you bet a hoss!" and with this the coal was deposited on the pipe,
and the lips began to crack like parchment as each puff of smoke
escaped. "He married rich, you see," and here another significant look
at the young master, and another fond look at Mirandy, as she puffed
away reflectively. "His wife hadn't no book-larnin'. She'd been through
the spellin'-book wunst, and had got as fur as 'asperity' on it a second
time. But she couldn't read a word when she was married, and never
could. She warn't overly smart. She hadn't hardly got the sense the law
allows. But schools was skase in them air days, and, besides,
book-larnin' don't do no good to a woman. Makes her stuck up. I never
knowed but one gal in my life as had ciphered into fractions, and she
was so dog-on stuck up that she turned up her nose one night at a
apple-peelin' bekase I tuck a sheet off the bed to splice out the
tablecloth, which was ruther short. And the sheet was mos' clean too.
Had-n been slep on more'n wunst or twicet. But I was goin' fer to say
that when Squire Hawkins married Virginny Gray he got a heap o' money,
or, what's the same thing mostly, a heap o' good land. And that's
better'