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"I've had a splendid time, an' I'm real obleeged to ye. I sh'll try to larn that story by heart, 'bout the bold Buckle-oh. I want to tell it to Pink! She'd like it oh, my! wouldn't she like it, jest like I mean jest like spellin'! Good by, Miss Hildy!"
"Then why doesn't tha, read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'? Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now." "I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India." "That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' library, there's thousands o' books there." Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea.
Sylvester when he comes, that Cap'n Warren, Cap'n Elisha Warren of South Denboro better write it down called and will be back about half past twelve or thereabouts. Got it, have you? Hum! is that Elisha? You don't tell me! I've been spellin' it for sixty years, more or less, and never realized it had such possibilities. Lend me your pencil. There! you give Mr.
"I kin spell the spellin' book right straight through, sir, from kiver to kiver." "But spelling is not the only branch to be taught in the Sharon school," said Chester. "What else do you know." "The three r's, sir; reading, 'ritin, and 'rithmetic." "You are acquainted with mathematics!"
"Dave didn't hardly knowed w'at ter do; but he could n' tell no lie, so he 'fessed he could read de Bible a little by spellin' out de words. Mars Dugal' look' mighty solemn. "'Dis yer is a se'ious matter, sezee; 'it's 'g'in' de law ter l'arn niggers how ter read, er 'low 'em ter hab books. But w'at yer l'arn out'n dat Bible, Dave? "Dave wa'n't no fool, ef he wuz a nigger, en sezee:
He fumbled in his pocket and drew out several sheets of paper. Arranging them carefully, he scanned the scrawling writing on them. "Guess you're a scholar, so I won't need to read what I writ down here. Mebbe you'll be able to read it yourself. I sure 'low the spellin' ain't jest right, but you'll likely understand it. Y'see, the writin's clear, which is the chief thing.
We're workin' the historical racket for all that it's worth, ef we can't go back mor'n a hundred years or so, we kin rake in a Lord and a Lady when we do, and we're gettin' in some ole-fashioned spellin' and "methinkses" and "peradventures." We're doin' the religious bizness ez slick ez Robert Elsmere, and we find lots o' soul in folks and heaps o quaint morril characters, sez he."
With most of the men present Elvira was acquainted: they were the patrons of her school, and found time in the midst of eating and general conversation to ask how Johnnie was a-comin' on in his spellin', or if Annie was gettin' along well in her 'rithmetic, adding, "I'll be wantin' her to calkilate interest for me by and by."
"Mebbe I ain't much on spellin' an' grammar an' all that sort of thing," he offered, "but there's a heap of sense to be got out of the stuff I've wrote. Take this one, for instance. She's a little oday to 'Night, which I composed while the boys was poundin' their ears one night not bein' affected in their feelin's like I was. If you ain't got no objections I'll read her."
I made it up that I 'd speak about the time when we wuz boys together; uv how we used to slide down the meetin'-house hill, an' go huckleberryin'; uv how I jumped into the pond one day an' saved him from bein' drownded; uv the spellin' school, the huskin' bees, the choir meetin's, the sparkin' times; of the swimmin' hole, the crow's nest in the pine-tree, the woodchuck's hole in the old pasture lot; uv the sunny summer days an' the snug winter nights when we wuz boys, an' happy!
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