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 ma.s.sacre, 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 pa.s.sed. 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 cla.s.s. 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 pa.s.s 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 tears--angry tears--but 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 cla.s.s.

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 pa.s.sed 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's--that 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 speller-- down 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 end--to 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, dispa.s.sionately.

"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 right--nor any other word right--at that moment. She merely shook her head and followed Julia to her seat, stumblingly, while a dead silence fell upon the room.

CHAPTER XX

UNCLE JABEZ IS MYSTERIOUS

Miss Cramp was in the habit of calling upon some trustee to speak at the close of the exercises--usually Mr. Semple--and then there was a little social time before the a.s.semblage broke up. But the frown on the chairman's face did not suggest that that gentleman had anything very jovial to say at the moment, and the teacher closed the exercises herself in a few words that were not at all personal to the winner of the spelling-match.

When the stir of people moving about aroused Ruth, her only thought was to get away from the schoolhouse. Perhaps not more than two dozen people had distinctly heard what Julia so cruelly said to her; but it seemed to the girl from the Red Mill as though everybody in that throng knew that she was a charity child--that, as Julia said, the very frock she had on belonged to somebody else.

And to Helen! She had never for a moment suspected that Helen had been the donor of the three frocks. Of course everybody in the neighborhood had known all the time that she was wearing Helen's cast-off clothing.

Everybody but Ruth herself would have recognized the dresses; she had been in the neighborhood so short a time that, of course, she was not very well acquainted with Helen's wardrobe.

At the moment she could not feel thankful to her chum. She could only remember Julia's cutting words, and feel the sting to her pride that she should have shown herself before all beholders the recipient of her friend's alms.

n.o.body spoke to her as she glided through the moving crowd and reached the door. Miss Cramp was delayed in getting to her; Helen and Tom did not see her go, for they were across the room and farthest from the door. And so she reached the exit and slipped out.

The men and boys from outside thronged the tiny anteroom and the steps. As she pushed through them one man said:

"Why, here's the smart leetle gal that took Semple's gal down a peg-- eh? She'd oughter have a prize for that, that's what she ought!"

But Ruth could not reply to this, although she knew it was meant kindly. She went out into the darkness. There were many horses. .h.i.tched about the schoolhouse, but she reached the clear road in safety and ran toward the Red Mill.

The girl came to the mill and went quietly into the kitchen. She had got the best of her tears now, but Aunt Alviry's bright eyes discovered at once that she was unhappy. Uncle Jabez did not even raise his eyes when she came in.

"What is the matter with my pretty leetle creetur?" whispered the old woman, creeping close to Ruth.

"Nothing is the matter now," returned Ruth, in the same low tone.

"Didn't you do well?" asked the old woman, wistfully.

"I won the spelling match," replied Ruth. "I stood up longer than anybody else."