sy words, that they might have some breathing-spell before being
slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He
let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but
one person left on the opposite side, and, as she rose in her blue
calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack
Means's. She had not attended school in the district, and had never
spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain
quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that
page of Webster, so well known to all who ever thumbed it, as "baker,"
from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these
words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody knew that she
would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over,
everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was the buzz
of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if "they could see
them safe home," which was the approved formula, and were trembling in
mortal fear of "the mitten." Presently the Squire, thinking it time to
close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye,
which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the
leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as
"incomprehensibility," and began to give out those "words of eight
syllables with the accent on the sixth." Listless scholars now turned
round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in at the master's final
triumph. But to their surprise "ole Miss Meanses' white nigger," as some
of them called her in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great
words with as perfect ease as the master. Still not doubting the result,
the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he
could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too
great for the ordinary buzz. Would "Meanses' Hanner" beat the master?
beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody's sympathy was
now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him,
and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In
fact, Ralph deserted himself. As he saw the fine, timid face of the girl
so long oppressed flush and shine with interest; as he looked at the
rather low but broad and intelligent brow and the fresh, white
complexion and saw the rich, womanly nature coming to the surface under
the influen