Read Ebook: How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee by Wister Owen Gruger Frederic Rodrigo Illustrator

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Ebook has 370 lines and 13629 words, and 8 pages

The secretary of Masticator was at the steps of the car and presented me at once to a most lovely girl. At the news she was to serve on the Simplified Spelling Committee with me, my heart bounded, every doubt left me, and I exclaimed:--

"I will spell just as you say."

"Then," she most sweetly returned, "never let us consent to any simplification of kiss." And I counted such answer a very happy omen.

She had come from a woman's college, and her important work on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays had demonstrated, beyond refutation, that the plays had been written by Queen Elizabeth, in collaboration with Sir Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey.

"Shall we be in Harrisburg soon, Mr. Kibosh?" she asked the secretary.

"It will be ten minutes after seven, Miss Appleby."

"And that is a whole three hours!" she cried, with no pleasure in her voice.

"Here is some good chickle," said Kibosh. And when she would take none, "Then I will," he said. "The private stock of Masticator B. Fellows. The public gets nothing like this."

He took a small object from the box that he held and put it in his mouth; and soon, while the train sped on, his large long jaws were oscillating with a smooth motion, and content, like a lukewarm glaze, overspread his immense bald features.

Thus it came to me what chickle was. "Chewing-gum!" I exclaimed!

Kibosh opened gentle eyes upon me. "We do not use that word at Arkansopolis." He smiled, removed the plastic morsel from his mouth, and placed it on the window-sill, that he might speak to me without impediment.

"Is there a chewing-gum trust, too?" asked Miss Appleby.

"But the whole nation does not chew gum!" the lovely girl again, with some spirit, interrupted.

"Chickle, Miss Appleby, if you please. Fifty per cent of our population chickles, and that makes eighty million jaws. When the time came to--ahem--float the proposition, after the bonds, there was an issue of one billion preferred, and two billions of common stock. It did not seem fitting, Miss Appleby, it did not seem dignified, that Wall Street should bandy back and forth such an expression as--ahem--'chewing-gum common.' To the eye, such an expression printed in the financial columns would seem--would--in short, hence chickle, Miss Appleby, noun and verb. Never anything else at Arkansopolis. Will you not chickle now? No? Ah, well. But at least you are with us in the Higher Spelling." His hand sought the window-sill, and then his mouth; and his jaws resumed their placid oscillation.

Miss Appleby had gone out upon the broad rear platform of our car; and there, as she sat alone, I joined her, saying:--

"Shall we talk of the Higher Spelling?"

But she seemed inclined for not much talk upon any subject; and the nearer Harrisburg drew, the more difficult I found it to engage her attention.

"There is nothing to see," I assured her when, as our train entered the station, she left me with something almost like eagerness.

I did not get out during our somewhat long stop, being occupied in my private stateroom with unpacking and disposing my clothes for the journey. As we started again, I emerged to find Miss Appleby in bright conversation with a newcomer.

I felt, I know not why, less glad to see this Professor Willows than Miss Appleby seemed. His long black coat and black tie were fairly proper for a man of erudition; but his hat was soft and broad of brim, and his trousers were of brown corduroy, drawn over high boots.

"And what, sir," I asked him, "may your views be on the Higher Spelling?"

"Bless yore heart, suh," he gayly responded, "what's spellin', anyway? Just alphabet lettuhs fixed like some man chose to fix 'em befo' you an' me were bawn. An' so I say such a man's had his notions more'n long enough, and it's high time we-all took a whirl at the dictionary."

"A noble sentiment, Professor," said Kibosh. "A truly noble sentiment. Will you not join me in a chickle?"

"I'm with you, suh!" he exclaimed. "Be-Jeroosalemmed if I wasn't pow'ful thirsty."

"Chickle is not liquid refreshment," said Kibosh, mildly; and he held out the box to his tall guest.

A quick, girlish cough sounded behind him.

Kibosh did not dare refuse him, and I came without being asked.

"It's a glorious exercise, suh," said the professor to me, in the private cabin.

"In moderation, yes," I answered.

"May I inquiuh to what you-all are referrin'?" he asked haughtily.

"Why, to this," I answered, tapping my glass.

The professor grew more stiff. "I referred to simplifyin' the spellin' of our language," he said.

"A glorious exercise?" I repeated vaguely.

"Fo' the imagination, suh. Turn yore eye whah you will, you'll see words that need refawmin', words that need our help, words that cry an' clamuh to be relieved of the stigma of their congested and nonsensical appearance; nouns, adjectives, verbs, all stuck in the hopeless mud of antiquity, an' holdin' out their hands for we-all to drag 'em out an' bring 'em up to date." He now gave me a list. "Look, suh, at those pore, sufferin', aged cripples, awaitin' the renewal of their youth."

"You have a magnificent collection," I remarked to him, after a glance at the list.

"Pshaw!" he returned. "I could double that in an hour. I just jotted that down as I came up the valley from Paw-paw in the Chattanooga Limited. Why, just lookin' out of the cyah windo' would give me notions. I saw a thistle. Down she went on the list, an' down went whistle next her, suggested by our locomotive. Thistle. Whistle. Look at those disgraces. Look at the dead wood in 'em. Are not they just congested all up with pitfalls for the young? Once we get to work at Arkansopolis, and they'll be thissl and wissl, or my name is not Jesse Willows."

He paused, and I looked at his list again. The railway journey had given him a number of suggestions; I saw, in hasty writing:--

Freight. That's dopy. Should be frate. Bridge. Another has-been. Brij.

My perusal was interrupted by his seizing the list away from me. "The po'tuh has turned the gas higher," he said. "That gives me another whole big line of 'em." And he wrote:--

Light should be lite. So also fight, and tight and others on the same plan.

"Po'tuh!" he called out, "what is yore name?"

"Michael, Colonel," the man answered.

"Another!" exclaimed the professor. And he wrote:--

Michael, Mycle, because cycle. Bicicle because icicle.

I kept various doubts to myself, and resolved that such must continue my policy if I were ever to have peace; but, no matter how I might agree to spell bicycle, I was secretly determined never to address my younger brother as Mycle. Imagine thus mutilating a name that had been in our family for generations!

Professor Willows showed his list to Miss Appleby; I saw him, and I saw her evidently add some words to it. But, to my surprise, this seemed to cause them mirth. They did not seek my company, and conversed together without ceasing, in a corner of our car, while Kibosh slumbered; and I wondered if the Higher Spelling was the subject that brought their heads so close to each other. That girl was more and more a disappointment to me; and I retired in no very good humor.

Mycle was not the only word to which, as I dressed myself next morning, I found my opinion to be entirely adverse; frate seemed to me objectionable, nor did I feel any leanings toward brij and lite. And the surprising readiness with which Professor Willows accepted my criticism failed to make upon me the happy impression which the adoption of one's views by another is apt to cause.

"You don't like frate, suh?" he said, whipping out his pencil, and quickly writing on his list. "Bless yore heart, then we'll just make it frait. How does that hit yore fancy?"

I thanked him for his amiability, but my fancy was as little hit by frait as it had been by frate; and it was still less hit when he came to me with his customary enthusiasm some twenty-five minutes after breakfast, to show me forty-three more words that he had simplified since rising from table. Still keeping all thoughts to myself, I read:--

Earth and dearth to irth and dirth, like mirth. Also worth to wirth. Pheasants whirr. Cats should pirr.

I passed the list back with I know not what commendations of his rapidity. He retired with it to the rear platform, where sat Miss Appleby; and almost immediately I heard egregious peals of laughter coming from them both. This, for some reason, kindled in me such annoyance that I put my head out of the door, and cried loudly to them: "Do you intend to make flirt flurt, or hurt hirt? And how about squirt?" And I shut the door sharp upon my words before they could make answer to me. But still, even through the closed door and thick plate-glass windows, their shameless merriment reached me, and seemed, if anything, louder than ever.

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