Compelled to silence, the Chronic Loafer closed his eyes as though oblivious to all about him, but a hand stole to his ear and formed a trumpet there to aid his hearing. “Some folks is nat’ral spellers jest ez others is nat’ral musicians,” began the Tinsmith. “Agin, it’s jest ez hard to make a good speller be edication ez it is to make a good bass-horn player, fer a felly that hain’t the inborn idee o’ how many letters is needed to make a word’ll never spell no better than the man that hain’t the nat’ral sense o’ how much wind’s needed to make a note, ’ll play the bass-horn.” “I cannot wholly agree with you,” the Teacher interrupted. “Give a child first words of one syllable, then two; drill him in words ending in _t-i-o-n_ until----” “We won’t discuss that, Perfessor. It don’t affect our case, fer Jawhn Jimson was a nat’ral speller. You never seen the like. Give him a word o’ six or seven syllables an’ he’d spell it out like it was on a blackboard right before him. ’Hen he was twenty he’d downed all the scholars in Happy Grove an’ won about six bees. Then he went to Pikestown Normal School, an’ ’hen he come back you never knowd the beat. He hed stedied Lating an’ algebray there, but I guesst he must also ’a’ spent considerable time a-brushin’ up his spellin’, fer they was only one felly ’bout these parts could keep with him any time at all. He was my frien’ Perry Muthersbaugh, who tot up to Kishikoquillas. “You uns mind the winter we hed the big blizzard, ’hen the snow covered all the fences an’ was piled so high in the roads that we hed to drive th’oo the fiel’s. They was a heap sight goin’ on that year--church sosh’bles, singin’ school an’ spellin’ bees. Me an’ Perry Muthersbaugh was buddies, an’ not a week passed ’thout we went some’eres together. Fore I knowd it him an’ Jawhn Jimson was keepin’ company with Hannah Ciders. She was jest ez pretty ez a peach, plump an rosy, with the slickest nat’ral hair an’ teeth you uns ever seen. She was fond o’ edication, too, so ’hen them teachers was after her she couldn’t make up her min’. She favored both. Perry was good lookin’ an’ steady an’ no fool. He’d set all evenin’ along side o’ her an’ never say nawthin’ much, but she kind o’ thot him good company. It allus seemed to me that Jimson was a bit conceity an’ bigitive, but he was amusin’ an’ hed the advantage of a normal school edication. He kind o’ dazzled her. She didn’t know which of ’em to take, an’ figured on it tell well inter the winter. Her color begin to go an’ she was gittin’ thin. Perry an’ Jawhn was near wild with anxiousness an’ was continual quarrelin’. Then what d’ye s’pose they done?” “It’ll take a long time fer ’em to do much the way you tells it,” the Chronic Loafer grumbled.