|
|
Article: The Spelling Bee.(Short Story)
- Article from:
- Child Life
- Article date:
- March 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
A Story About Noah Webster as a Boy
The schoolmaster did not see the note passed beneath the long wooden benches from hand to hand. It was a bare, chilly, country schoolroom in West Hartford, Connecticut, in the year 1770. It had thin walls, a leaking roof, and a dirt floor. No maps, pictures, lockers, or bookshelves made it pleasant; there were no pictured textbooks. The note was written on a page stealthily torn from a handmade copybook. There was a fireplace in this long-ago schoolroom, but it scorched the faces of those near it and left those a few feet away blue and shivering.
"Spell fetch," commanded the schoolmaster.
"Fetch, f-e-t-c-h," ...