something wrong, and then turn around and treat the one that caught him as a friend.
Alvin wound Arthur Stuart back into his scarves, and then wrapped himself up again, and plunged back into the snow, this time carrying all that he bought from Vanderwoort in a burlap sack. He tucked the sack under the seat of the sleigh so it wouldn't get snowed on. Then he lifted Arthur Stuart into place and climbed up after. The horses looked happy enough to get moving again - they only got colder and colder, standing in the snow.
On the way back to the roadhouse they found Mock Berry on the road and took him on home. Not a word did he say about what happened in the store, but Alvin knew it wasn't cause he didn't appreciate it. He figured Mock Berry was plain ashamed of the fact that it took an eighteen-year-old prentice boy to get him honest measure and fair price in Vanderwoort's general store - only cause the boy was White. Not the kind of thing a man loves to talk about.
"Give a howdy to Goody Berry," said Alvin, as Mock hopped off the sleigh up the lane from his house.
"I'll say you said so," said Mock. "And thanks for the ride." In six steps he was clean gone in the blowing snow. The storm was getting worse and worse.
Once everything was dropped off at the roadhouse, it was near time for Alvin's and Arthur's schooling at Miss Larner's house, so they headed on down there and threw snowballs at each other all the way. Alvin stopped in at the forge to give the deliverybook to Makepeace. But Makepeace must've laid off early cause he wasn't there; Alvin tucked the book onto the shelf by the door, where Makepeace would know to look for it. Then he and Arthur went back to snowballs till Miss Larner came back.
Dr. Whitley Physicker drove her in his covered sleigh and walked her right up to her door. When he took note of Alvin and Arthur waiting around, he looked a bit annoyed. "Don't you boys think Miss Larner shouldn't have to do any more teaching on a day like this?"
Miss Larner laid a hand on Dr. Physicker's arm. "Thank you for bringing me home, Dr. Physicker," she said.
"I wish you'd call me Whitley."
"You're kind to me, Dr. Physicker, but I think your honored title suits me best. As for these pupils of mine, it's in bad weather that I do my best teaching, I've found, for they aren't wishing to beat the swimming hole."
"Not me!" shouted Arthur Stuart. "How do you spell 'championship'?"
"C-H-A-M-P-I-0-N-S-H-I-P," said Miss Larner. "Wherever did you hear that word?"
"C-H-A-M-P-I-0-N-S-H-I-P," said Arthur Stuart in Miss Larner's voice.
"That boy is certainly remarkable," said Physicker. "A mockingbird, I'd say."
"A mockingbird copies the song," said Miss Larner, "but makes no sense of it. Arthur Stuart may speak back the spellings in my voice, but he truly knows the word and can read it or write it whenever he wishes."
"I'm not a mockingbird," said Arthur Stuart. "I'm a spelling bee championship."
Dr. Physicker and Miss Larner exchanged a look that plainly meant more than Alvin could understand just from watching.
"Very well," said Dr. Physicker. "Since I did in fact enroll him as a special student - at your insistence - he can compete in the county spelling bee. But don't expect to take him any farther, Miss Larner!"
"Your reasons were all excellent, Dr. Physicker, and so I agree. But my reasons - "
"Your reasons were overwhelming, Miss Larner. And I can't help but relish in advance the consternation of the people who fought to keep him out of school, when they watch him do as well as children twice his age."
"Consternation, Arthur Stuart," said-Miss Larner.
"Consternation," said Arthur. "C-O-N-S-T-E-R-N-A-T-I-O-N."
"Good evening, Dr. Physicker. Come inside, boys. Time for school."
* * *
Arthur Stuart won the county spelling bee, with the word "celebratory." Then Miss Larner immediately withdrew him from further competition; another child would take his place at the state competition. As a result there was little note taken, except among the locals. Along with a brief notice in the Hatrack River newspaper.
Sheriff Pauley Wiseman folded up that page of the newspaper with a short note and put them in an envelope addressed to Reverend Philadelphia Thrower, The Property Rights Crusade, 44 Harrison Street, Carthage City, Wobbish. It took two weeks for that newspaper page to be spread open on Thrower's desk, along with the