Susie was safe for that round; and in the next Elder Keyser was almost spitefully slow and correct in uttering the word he gave her.

During all that time, the older people from the farmhouse had been watching the course of events with no small degree of exultation over the success of their young representatives.

Corry had joined them, and about his first remark was,--

"Oh, but won't old Keyser be a popular man in Cobbleville after to-night! He'd better go in for a donation. Half the boys in the village'd like to s...o...b..ll him on his way home."

The game grew closer. Barely six on a side, when Corry exclaimed,--

"That cross-eyed girl's down! She was the best speller they had last year. Too bad, too. She spelled 'bunch,' when what old Keyser said was 'bench.' It's a good deal too much to have to guess at what's in his mouth, and then spell it."

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed aunt Judith a moment later. "Here comes Pen."

"Such luck she's had!" said Corry. "Nothing harder than 'melon' since she began. Now it's Port's turn. Here he comes."

"Port," said Mrs. Farnham, "what was that word?"

"'Baratry,' and I thought he said 'battery;' and that long-necked Cobbleville boy said 'bartery,' and gave 'swopping jackknives' for an example."

It could not last much longer now.

"There!" exclaimed Mrs. Stebbins, "if my Vosh ain't all alone on our side! O Lavawjer!"

"O Susie!" groaned Port, "to think of her spelling 'elopement' without any middle 'e'!"

She had done it by a slip of the tongue, and, when asked for an example, stammered out,--

"Elopement, a runaway," and left Vosh to fight what there was left of Cobbleville. There would have been three against him, if a bright boy had not forgotten how many "l's" there should be in "traveller," and then given himself for an example as he shot away down the aisle.

Vosh knew how to spell "traveller;" and the next word went across the house to be spelled as "porringer," when all the elder wanted was "porridge."

"Two left," said Mrs. Stebbins,--"that there dumpy gal and my Vosh."

"She's one of the smartest girls in all Cobbleville," said Corry.

"She ain't as smart as my Vosh."

Opinions might vary on a point like that; and every time the healthy-looking young lady whom Mrs. Stebbins so unkindly described as "dumpy" spelled a word correctly, her conduct was approved by Cobbleville in a rousing round of applause. All that Vosh's friends could do for him was as nothing to it, but he had his revenge. On the fourth word, after they were left alone, the applause began too soon.

The healthy young lady remembered too well the nature of Susie Hudson's blunder, and she rashly inserted an unnecessary "e" in "fusibility."

"Wrong. Down. Example?"

"Fusibility--example!"--a long, confused hesitation--"b.u.t.ter, sir."

And the hasty mult.i.tude of Cobbleville had been loudly cheering the unlucky "e" which the triumphant Vosh the next moment very carefully omitted.

Didn't Benton cheer then!

"Vosh has got the dictionary!" all but shouted his happy mother. "I declare, I'll read it through."

"If she does," whispered Corry to Port, "she'll never stop talking again as long as she lives."

"She'd have all the words she'd need to keep her a-going."

The ceremony of presenting the prize was gracefully turned over to Elder Evans by his reverend friend and the committee. The good man seemed to take a special pleasure in delivering so very large a book to "a young member of his own flock," as he expressed it. It must be confessed that Vosh looked more than a little "sheepish" when he walked forward, and held out his hands for the prize.

The great spelling-match was over, and the crowd of old and young spectators began to disperse.

Before the Cobbleville boys could make up their minds clearly whether it was their duty to s...o...b..ll Elder Keyser or the Benton-district folk, the latter were mostly on their way home.

"Susie," said Vosh, as he stowed the dictionary carefully away in the red cutter, "I wish you'd won it."

"I'm real glad I didn't, then. Our side beat, and that's quite enough for me."

CHAPTER VIII.

AN OLD-FASHIONED SNOW.

There had been several light and fleecy falls of snow since the arrival of the "city cousins" at the farmhouse, but they had been only about enough to keep the sleighing in good order. The weather was bracingly cold; but, for all that, aunt Judith more than once felt called upon to remark,--

"The winters nowadays ain't nothin' at all to what they used to be."

"We'll have more snow yet," said the deacon. "Don't you be afraid."

"Snow, Joshaway! Well, if you've forgotten, I haven't. I've seen this place of ourn jest snowed in for days and days, so't you couldn't git to the village at all till the roads was broke."

Mrs. Stebbins had had a great deal more to say about it, all in the same strain; and the only consolation seemed to be, in the language of Deacon Farnham,--

"It's the best kind of a winter for the lumbermen. The choppers haven't had to lose a day of time, and the haulin's the best you ever heard tell of."

Just snow enough, and no more. That sort of thing was not to be securely counted on, however, as they were all about to learn. The very Sat.u.r.day after the spelling-match, the morning opened with a sort of haze creeping over the north-eastern sky.

It seemed to drift down from somewhere among the mountains, and by noon the snow began to fall.

"Boys," said the deacon, "it's going to be a big one this time, real old-fashioned sort. We must get out the shovels, and keep the paths open."

It hardly seemed necessary to do any shovelling yet; but the white flakes fell faster and faster, hour after hour, and night came on earlier than usual.

"Now, Port," said Corry, "if you and I know what's good for ourselves, we'll lay in all the wood we'll need for to-morrow and next day. Every thing'll be snowed clean under."

"That's so, but I wouldn't ha' missed seeing it come."

Neither would Susie; and she and Pen watched it from the sitting-room windows, while even aunt Judith came and stood beside them, and declared,--