The Hoosier Schoolmaster. By Edward Eggleston. (Routledge.)— Ralph Hartsook goes
to be schoolmaster at Flat Crick, somewhere in the backwoods, where he has to deal with about as rough a lot of pupils and people in general as can be well imagined. He goes through a variety of adventures, the most novel of them being a grand "spelling match ; " spelling matches being, it seems, the favourite, or it may be said, the only intellectual amusement of these far-away settlements. It is one of the advantages which they get from their English descent ; we suppose that no other nation finds any difficulty, or consequently any fun, in spelling. In this, after having himself won a great victory, he is van- quished by one Hannah, a "bound girl," at the house of the chief
trustee of the village, an old ruffian of the name of Jack Means. Hannah is a most refined creature, and has, it may be supposed, a somewhat rough time of it. Things must be turned very much topsy-turvy in the West, if delicate creatures like Hannah serve in the households of such ruffians as Mr. Means. Ralph gets into a scrape, and is tried for a robbery, a most improbable affair, it seems to us, as far as we can disen- tangle the story. However, by the help of one "Brother Sodom," a stern preacher, who fairly frightens a mean-spirited witness into telling the truth in all things, all go well. The preacher is well drawn, and is certainly the best thing in the book, the other characters being of the common types with which American tales have made us familiar.
Previous page
