It was now not so hard. The other spellers on the opposite side went down quickly under the hard words which the Squire gave out. The master had mowed down all but a few, his opponents had given up the battle, and all had lost their keen interest in a contest to which there could be but one conclusion, for there were only the poor spellers left. But Ralph Hartsook ran against a stump where he was least expecting it. It was the Squire’s custom, when one of the smaller scholars or poorer spellers rose to spell against the master, to give out eight or ten easy words that they might have some breathing spell before being slaughtered, and then to give a poser or two which soon settled them. He let them run a little, as a cat does a doomed mouse. There was now but one person left on the opposite side, and as she rose in her blue calico dress, Ralph recognized Hannah, the bound girl at old Jack Means’s. She had not attended school in the district, and had never spelled in spelling-school before, and was chosen last as an uncertain quantity. The Squire began with easy words of two syllables, from that page of Webster, so well-known to all who ever thumbed it, as “Baker,” from the word that stands at the top of the page. She spelled these words in an absent and uninterested manner. As everybody knew that she would have to go down as soon as this preliminary skirmishing was over, everybody began to get ready to go home, and already there was a buzz of preparation. Young men were timidly asking girls if they could “see them safe home,” which is the approved formula, and were trembling in mortal fear of “the mitten.” Presently the Squire, thinking it time to close the contest, pulled his scalp forward, adjusted his glass eye, which had been examining his nose long enough, and turned over the leaves of the book to the great words at the place known to spellers as “Incomprehensibility,” and began to give out those “words of eight syllables with the accent on the sixth.” Listless scholars now turned round, and ceased to whisper, in order to be in the master’s final triumph. But to their surprise, “ole Miss Meanses’ white nigger,” as some of them called her, in allusion to her slavish life, spelled these great words with as perfect ease as the master. Still, not doubting the result, the Squire turned from place to place and selected all the hard words he could find. The school became utterly quiet, the excitement was too great for the ordinary buzz. Would “Meanses’ Hanner” beat the master? Beat the master that had laid out Jim Phillips? Everybody’s sympathy was now turned to Hannah. Ralph noticed that even Shocky had deserted him, and that his face grew brilliant every time Hannah spelled a word. In fact, Ralph deserted himself. If he had not felt that a victory given would insult her, he would have missed intentionally. “Daguerreotype,” sniffled the Squire. It was Ralph’s turn. “D-a-u, dau――――” “Next.” And Hannah spelled it right.