choose-up-and-spell-down

Updated: August 13, 2026

We used to have a fine old sport on Friday afternoons, called "choose-up-and-spell-down." I don't know if you ever played it. It was a survival, pure and simple, from the Old Red School-house. There was where it really lived. There was where it flourished as a gladiatorial spectacle. The crack spellers of District Number 34 would challenge the crack spellers of the Sinking Spring School.

Eugene Wood - Back Home