The spelling-bees were attended by the parents of the pupils and all the neighbors thereabout, and Helen wrote that she and Tom were going to attend on the evening in question and that Tom said he hoped to see Ruth “just eat up those other girls” when it came to spelling.  But Ruth Fielding much doubted her cannibalistic ability in this line.  Julia Semple had borne off the honors on two occasions during the winter, and her particular friend Rosa Ball, had won the odd trial.  Now it was generally considered that the final spelling-bee would be the occasion of a personal trial of strength between the two friendly rivals.  Either Julia or Rosa must win.

But Ruth was the kind of a person who, in attempting a thing, did her very best to accomplish it.  She had given some time and thought to the spelling book.  She was not likely to “go down” before any easy, or well-known word.  Indeed, she believed herself letter perfect in the very hardest page of the spelling-book some time before the fateful evening.

“Oh, perhaps you think you know them all, Ruth Fielding!” exclaimed one of the little girls one day when the spelling-bee was being discussed at recess.  “But Miss Cramp doesn’t stick to the speller.  You just wait till she tackles the dictionary.”

“The dictionary!” cried Ruth.

“That’s what Miss Cramp does,” the child assured her.  “If she can’t spell them down out of the speller, she begins at the beginning of the dictionary and gives words out until she finds one that floors them all.  You wait and see!”

So Ruth thought it would do no harm to study the dictionary a little, and taking her cue from what the little girls said, she remained in between sessions and began with “aperse,” committing to memory as well as she could those words that looked to be “puzzlers.”  Before the day of the spelling-bee she believed that, if Miss Cramp didn’t go beyond the first letter of the alphabet, she would be fairly well grounded in the words as they came in rotation.

Ruth knew that every other pupil in the school would have friends in the audience that evening save herself.  She wished that Aunt Alvirah could have attended the spelling-bee; but of course her back and her bones precluded her walking so far, and neither of them dared ask Uncle Jabez to hitch up and take them to the schoolhouse in his wagon.

The schoolhouse was crowded, all the extra seats that could be provided were arranged in rows, and, it being a mild evening, the men and bigger boys stood outside the open windows.  There was a great bustle and whispering until Miss Cramp’s tinkling bell called the audience as well as the pupils to order.

The scholars took their places according to their class standing in a long row around the room.  As one was spelled down he or she took a seat again, and so the class was rapidly thinned out, for many of the little folk missed on the very easiest words in the speller.  Ruth stood within ten pupils of the head of the line at the beginning and when the spelling began she had an encouraging smile and nod from Helen, who, with her brother, sat where they could see the girl from the Red Mill Ruth determined to do her best.