How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee — A Closer Reading

Jesse had mounted upon the table with the still faintly bellowing Totts. 96

HOW DOTH THE SIMPLE SPELLING-BEE

_How doth the Simple Spelling-bee Impruv each shining ower._

Of course, I know not how it may be with you; but with me the mail brings daily a multitude of communications that I have not sought, and do not want; nor do I refer to bills alone; and so, when there came one day a printed card saying:--

I tossed it into my waste-paper basket, and remembered it no more. Some days had passed, during which I had worked onward at the index of my forthcoming volume, when my memory was jogged by the arrival of a new absurdity:--

Like its predecessor, this card went at once into my basket. I had nearly finished the B's in my index before the mail brought the following:--

It ought to be your custom now To simplify, and spell plough plow; Therefore write quickly on your cuff From this day forth to spell tough tuff. A third must follow these first tu, So you will always spell through thru, Nor in the midst of things leave off, But joyfully now make cough coff. By this time you must clearly noa Dough can't be doe, do, dow, but doa.

Well, if they purposed to reform our spelling, which has always been a mere rag-bag of lawlessness, I hoped that they would do it right; but I was too deeply immersed in completing the index of my forthcoming volume to spend thought upon this question; nor did I court interruption. My waste-paper basket, therefore, received another willing contribution. And when presently the clue to these cards reached me in the following telegraphic message, just at the outset of my morning's work:--

CHICKLE UNIVERSITY, Arkansopolis, October 6, 1906. English spelling rotten to the core. Help us. MASTICATOR B. FELLOWS.

I responded, not without satire:--

Utterly prostrated by news. Helpless. THOMAS GREENBERRY.

And thinking that thus I was rid of him, I proceeded quietly with the index of my forthcoming volume.

But Masticator B. Fellows, president and proprietor of Chickle University, had not done with me so easily. Since his street-boyhood, sixty years ago, this ardent personality ('tis thus the daily press describes him) had made his own way, and had his own way; he was his own capital, and there is no record of his ever having sunk a cent of it. Of habits strictly pure, he had never seen a card or a drop of liquor that he had touched, and he had never seen a dollar that he had not touched. He had organized every industry along his path, from paper-selling, boot-blacking, and so upward to his organized lobby at Washington, through which he had caused a heavy tariff to be put upon every commodity necessary to the American people. It was he who had advised his brother organizers to keep Religion on the free list, because, as he assured them, "if we tax it, they'll do without it, while if we don't, they'll trust us for a while yet." And now, at the age of seventy-five, with uncounted millions, and ten United States Senators, and a fourth young wife all in his pocket, he proposed to hand his name to Immortality by simplifying the spelling of English all over the earth. Well, let him do it if he would only do it right.

But this he must do without my assistance; there were other professors, many of them. I did not permit the circulars that now began to pour in from Chickle University to distract me from my index. Striking as these circulars were--and I will instance but one of them:--

Judge, budge, ridge, acknowledge ARE SLOW Call in and try our Quick Spelling Juj. Buj. Rij. Aknolej--

they went into the basket one after another. To this method of suggestion a second was soon added, and my coat-pockets, as well as my mail, began to be filled with spelling literature. I would go out for a walk, and during this exercise some paper or pamphlet would be slipped into the coat, which I would discover upon my return. I remember pulling out a little book of verse, beginning:--

I am only a primer to teach you to spel, Which is something that nobody does very wel. A sweet little primer, A dear little primer, Sing hel, bel, tel, fel, sel, nel, quel, swel and smel.

I felt, let me confess it, annoyed the next day on returning from my walk to find a new method of suggestion, in great charcoal letters, on the white marble of my house-front:--

Such nuisances as Solemn Comptroller and Wednesday are preventing THE KING OF SIAM from learning English