ghed,
partly awed into doing just what he had not intended to do. In the week
that followed, Bill had to fight half a dozen boys for calling him
"Puppy Means." Bill said he wished he'd licked the master on the spot.
'Twould 'a' saved five fights out of the six.

And all that day and the next, the bulldog in the master's eye was a
terror to evil-doers. At the close of school on the second day Bud was
heard to give it as his opinion that "the master wouldn't be much in a
tussle, but he had a heap of thunder and lightning in him."

Did he inflict corporal punishment? inquires some philanthropic friend.
Would you inflict corporal punishment if you were tiger-trainer in Van
Amburgh's happy family? But poor Ralph could never satisfy his
constituency in this regard.

"Don't believe he'll do," was Mr. Pete Jones's comment to Mr. Means.
"Don't thrash enough. Boys won't l'arn 'less you thrash 'em, says I.
Leastways, mine won't. Lay it on good is what I says to a master. Lay it
on good. Don't do no harm. Lickin' and l'arnin' goes together. No
lickin', no l'arnin', says I. Lickin' and l'arnin,' lickin' and larnin',
is the good ole way."

And Mr. Jones, like some wiser people, was the more pleased with his
formula that it had an alliterative sound. Nevertheless, Ralph was
master from this time until the spelling-school came. If only it had not
been for that spelling-school! Many and many a time after the night of
the fatal spelling-school Ralph used to say, "If only it had not been
for that spelling-school!"

There had to be a spelling-school. Not only for the sake of my story,
which would not have been worth the telling if the spelling-school had
not taken place, but because Flat Creek district had to have a
spelling-school. It is the only public literary exercise known in
Hoopole County. It takes the place of lyceum lecture and debating club.
Sis Means, or, as she wished now to be called, Mirandy Means, expressed
herself most positively in favor of it. She said that she 'lowed the
folks in that district couldn't in no wise do without it. But it was
rather to its social than to its intellectual benefits that she
referred. For all the spelling-schools ever seen could not enable her to
stand anywhere but at the foot of the class. There is one branch
diligently taught in a backwoods school. The public mind seems impressed
with the difficulties of English orthography, and there is a solemn
conviction that the chief end of man is