'You gave what winning takes: hunnud pussent'

In reading and writing, I found rhyme and reason, but not in arithmetic. As best he could, my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird explained it. Although illiterate, he had been taught by life’s most demanding teacher: experience. His wisdom filled many gaps in my education.

Take percentages, for example. The teacher’s explanation went over my head, but Jaybird’s made sense:

“Let's say you’ve got $100, and I konk you on the head with a stick, and take all yo’ money. I robbed you — hunnud pussent. But, if I take $50, I robbed you fifty pussent. If I take $10, I robbed you ten pussent, and left you ninety pussent to git yo’ head stitched up.”

Jaybird’s lessons were unforgettable, especially the one for overcoming life's challenges: “Work hard, succeed; hardly work, fail.”

Leland Elementary School’s spelling bees demonstrated this truth for me. In grade three, I won easily by spelling a word the other finalists misspelled, and looked forward to next year’s contest.

I wasn’t counting on Velma Vandevender. When her dad was hired by a nearby agricultural experiment station, he moved his family from Minnesota to Mississippi. Her accent cracked us up, and I was convinced that anyone who talked that funny couldn’t be smart. Shy, skinny, pigtailed, and freckled, Velma kept to herself, always reading books.

Velma and I were the fourth grade spelling bee finalists. We swapped rounds, successfully spelling difficult words such as aardvark, bivouacking, bourgeois, and chandelier. Then I misspelled “chauffeur.” Velma spelled it correctly.

“That funny-talking girl beat me, Jaybird,” I sniffed.

“Did you practice?” My silence answered.

“She’ll win again next year. You gotta do what she does — practice every day. She put forth a hunnud pussent; you put forth zero pussent.”

His words hit home. Daily, I began practicing with flash cards.

One day, I saw Velma in study hall with a dictionary opened before her. She was flipping through it, selecting pages at random. When I asked what she was doing, her friendliness surprised me.

“This is how I practice spelling,” she said. “I can learn so many more words than with flash cards. I’ll show you.”

From then on, we met whenever we could, and took turns using her technique and calling out words to each other. We learned and had fun at the same time.

At the next bee, Velma and I eliminated everyone and squared off again. Something had changed, though. I didn’t want her to win, but I didn’t want her to lose either. She thought the same about me. The reason was obvious: We’d become best friends.

An appropriate word stumped me: “selflessness.” I was sad about losing, but glad for her; she was happy about winning, but sad for me.

When Jaybird asked how the spelling bee turned out, I shrugged and said, “Velma won.”

“You ain’t mad?”

“No. I practiced hard and did my best, so I don’t feel like I lost.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “You gave what winning takes: hunnud pussent.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss alumnus, Army veteran, and retired Mississippi Delta cotton farmer Jimmy Reed ([email protected]) is a newspaper columnist, author, and college teacher. His latest collection of short stories is available via squarebooks.com (662-236-2262).