Amanda - Anna Balmer Myers (read e book TXT) 📗

The old-fashioned Spelling Bee has never wholly died out in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Each year readers of certain small-town papers will find numerous news-titles headed something like this: “The Bees Will Buzz,” and under them an urgent invitation to attend a Spelling Bee at a certain rural schoolhouse. “A Good Time Promised”—“Classes for All”—“Come One, Come All”—the advertisements never fail. Many persons walk or ride to the little schoolhouse. The narrow seats, the benches along the wall, and all extra chairs that can be brought to the place are taken long before the hour set for the bees to buzz. The munificent charge is generally fifteen cents, and where in this whole United States of America can so much real enjoyment be secured for fifteen cents as is given at an old-fashioned Spelling Bee?

That April evening of Amanda’s Bee the Crow Hill schoolhouse was filled at an early hour. The scholars, splendid in their Sunday clothes, occupied front seats. Parents, friends and interested visitors from near-by towns crowded into the room.

Amanda, dressed in white, came upon the platform and announced that the scholars had prepared a simple program which would be interspersed through the spelling classes.

Vehement clapping of hands greeted her words and then the audience became silent as the littlest scholar of the school rose and delivered the address of welcome. There followed music and more recitations, all amateurish, but they brought feelings of pride to many mothers and fathers who listened, smiling, to “Our John” or “Our Mary” do his or her best.

But the real excitement began with the spelling classes. The first was open to all children under fourteen. At the invitation, boys and girls walked bravely to the front and joined the line till it reached from one side of the room to the opposite. A teacher from a neighboring town gave out the words. The weeding-out process soon began. Some fell down on simple words, others handled difficult ones with ease and spelled glibly through some which many of the older people present had forgotten existed. Soon the class narrowed down to two. Back and forth, back and forth the words rolled until the teacher pronounced one of the old standby catch-words. One of the contestants shook his head, puzzled, and surrendered.

There was more music, several recitations by the children, a spelling class for older people, more music, then a General Information class, whose participants were asked such questions as, “Who is State Superintendent of Schools?” “How many legs has a fly?” “How many teeth has a cow?” “Which color is at the top of the rainbow arch?” The amazed, puzzled expressions on the faces of the questioned afforded much merriment for the others. It was frequently necessary to wait a moment until the laughter was suppressed before other questions could be asked.

A geographical class was equally interesting. “How many counties has Pennsylvania?” sent five persons to their seats before it was answered correctly. Others succeeded in locating such queer names as Popocatepetl, Martinique, Ashtabula, Rhodesia, Orkney, Comanche.

A little later the last spelling class was held. It was open to everybody. The line was already stretched across the schoolroom when Lyman Mertzheimer, home for a few days of vacation, entered the schoolhouse.

“Oh, dear,” thought Amanda, “what does he want here? I’d rather do without his fifteen cents! He expects to make a show and win the prize from every one else.”

Lyman, indeed, swaggered down the room and entered the line, bearing the old air of superiority. “I’ll show them how to spell,” he thought as he took his place. Spelling had been his strong forte in the old days of school, and it was soon evident that he retained his former ability. The letters of the most confusing words fell from his lips as though the very pages of the spelling-book were engraved upon his brain. He held his place until the contest had ruled out all but two beside himself. Then he looked smilingly at Amanda and reared his head in new dignity and determination.

“Stelliform, the shape of a star,” submitted the teacher. The word fell to Lyman. He was visibly hesitant. Was it stelli or stella?

Bringing his knowledge of Latin into service, he was inclined to think it was stella. He began, “S-t-e-l-l—”

He looked uncertainly at one of his friends who was seated in the front seat. He, also, was a champion speller.

“Oh, if Joe would only help me!” thought the speller.

As if telepathy were possible, Joe raised the forefinger of his left hand to his eye, looked at Lyman with a meaning glance that told him what he craved to know.

“Iform,” finished Lyman in sure tones.

“Correct.”

“That was clever of Joe,” thought the cheat as the teacher gave out a word to one of the three contestants. “I just caught his sign in time. Nobody noticed it.”

But he reckoned without the observant teacher of Crow Hill school. Amanda, seated in the front of the room and placed so she half faced the audience and with one little turn of her head could view the spellers, had seen the cheating process and understood its significance. The same trick had been attempted by some of her pupils several times during the monthly spelling tests she held for the training of her classes.

“The cheat! The big cheat!” she thought, her face flushing with anger. “How I hope he falls down on the next word he gets!”

However, the punishment he deserved was not meted out to him. Lyman Mertzheimer outspelled his opponents and stood alone on the platform, a smiling victor.

“The cheat! The contemptible cheat!” hammered in Amanda’s brain.

After the distribution of prizes, cheap reprint editions of well-known books, an auctioneer stepped on the platform and drew from a corner a bushel basket of packages of various sizes and shapes.

“Oyez, Oyez,” he called in true auctioneer style, “we have here a bushel of good things,