In those days spelling was one of the high lights of school work, and we were incited to excellence in this branch of learning by head tickets, which were a promise of still greater honor, in the form of a prize, to the winner.  The one who stood at the head of the class at the close of the lesson received a ticket, and the holder of the greatest number of these tickets at the end of the school year bore home in triumph the much-coveted prize in the shape of a book as a visible token of superiority.  I wanted that prize, and worked for it.  Tickets were accumulating in my little box with exhilarating regularity, and I was nobly upholding the family name when I was stricken with pneumonia, and my victorious career had a rude check.  My nearest competitor was Sam, who almost exulted in my illness because of the opportunity it afforded him for a rich harvest of head tickets.  In the exuberance of his joy he made some remark to this effect, which Sant overheard.  Up to this time Sant had taken no interest in the contests in spelling, but Sam’s remark galvanized him into vigorous life, and spelling became his overmastering passion.  Indeed, he became the wonder of the school, and in consequence poor Sam’s anticipations were not realized.  Day after day Sant caught the word that Sam missed, and thus added another ticket to his collection.  So it went until I took my place again, and then Sant lapsed back into his indifference, leaving me to look after Sam myself.  When I tried to face him down with circumstantial evidence he seemed pained to think that I could ever consider him capable of such designing.  The merry twinkle in his eye was the only confession he ever made.  Small wonder that I loved Sant.  If I were writing a testimonial for myself I should say that it was much to my credit that I loved a boy like that.

As a boy my risibilities were easily excited, and I’m glad that, even yet, I have not entirely overcome that weakness.  If I couldn’t have a big laugh, now and then, I’d feel that I ought to consult a physician.  My boys and girls and I often laugh together, but never at one another.  Sant had a deal of fun with my propensity to laugh.  When we were conning our geography lesson, he would make puns upon such names as Chattahoochee and Appalachicola, and I would promptly explode.  Then, enter the teacher.  But I drop the mantle of charity over the next scene, for his school-teaching was altogether personal, and not pedagogical.  He didn’t know that puns and laughter were the reactions on the part of us boys that caused us to know the facts of the book.  But he wanted us to learn those facts in his way, and not in our own.  Poor fellow! Requiescat in pace, if he can.