Christy's World Trivia Quiz

Answer: six

Christy marveled that six letters could be called 'piled-up mail'. In the Cove, where houses were few and scattered, a letter from the outside world was a precious thing.

Answer: Bob Allen

Bob got struck on the head by a falling tree and Dr. Neil MacNeill had to perform a trephine operation on him. Ouch!

Answer: To keep the patient from hemorrhaging

It was a mountain superstition. Mary Allen also tied a string around her husband's wrist, believing it would keep disease away. The operation was performed under condition that doctors today would shudder at, but Bob Allen survived it!

Answer: dulcimer

Coleridge mentions 'a damsel with a dulcimer' in "Kubla Khan". A dulcimer usually has two to eight strings and is played by strumming with a goose quill. It looks different from a guitar, with a slender waist and heart-shaped holes. Jeb Spencer played a four-stringed dulcimer when Christy paid them her first official visit as schoolteacher.

Answer: Jehoshaphat

Zach's ear kept twitching whenever he said that his name was Zacharias Jehoshaphat Holt. Creed Allen, who sat behind him, claimed that Zach's ears twitched whenever he was lying, but the twitching was really due to Creed's pulling a string looped over Zach's ear.

Answer: Scalawag

Christy told Creed the name could apply to him as well. He brought Scalawag to school that first day and hid the coon in his desk. When Christy investigated the string over Zach's ear, Creed hid the string in his desk and it got into Scalawag's mouth. When Christy reached into the desk, Scalawag jumped out, took the string from his mouth, and began scolding at Christy!

Answer: buttons

Mountie could hardly speak clearly, although she was ten years old. Christy tried to find a way to help Mountie gain some self-confidence. One day she noticed that Mountie's coat had no buttons, and secretly sewed some on it. Mountie was so happy she kept exclaiming "Look at my buttons! See my pretty buttons!" --- and spoke clearly for the first time! Christy did give her a scarf later, but the buttons came first.

Answer: Bird's Eye Taylor

Bird's Eye had an abusive childhood. His father taught him to be cruel to animals as a little boy, and later to be such a good shot that it was said he could hit a bird's eye as far as he could see it. That was how he got his name. But he didn't kill Tom McHone.

Answer: It's today I must be living!

The 'homespun building philosophy' was enunciated by Opal McHone, not Fairlight. Even though Fairlight led a hard life, taking care of her husband and five children in conditions that could be called primitve, she loved life so much that she always took time to appreciate beautiful things around her and even to go for long walks with Christy.

She often said that her housework would be there waiting for her to come back anyway.

Answer: Ruby Mae Morrison

Christy worried about Opal; she could hardly bear the squalor at the O'Teales; and Miss Ida often sniped at her verbally. But it was Ruby Mae she considered to be her personal bundle. Ruby Mae admired Christy so much she kept following the latter around, and Christy didn't like it especially as Ruby Mae wasn't very clean.

But in time she grew to appreciate Ruby Mae and cared enough to teach her the fundamentals of cleanliness and proper hygiene.

Answer: Esther

Christy took great pains with her appearance before she went to see Mr. Smith. But when she got to Knoxville, where Mr. Smith had his office, she saw what other women were wearing and felt dowdy. In order to feel more dressed up, she stepped into a hairdresser's for a new hairdo, then bought a specatacular hat that cost her a whole month's salary! Needless to say, she got the donations, including a promise of college scholarships for deserving students.

Answer: her eyes

Those were Mr. Smith's last words to her. He said he thought she had the most beautiful eyes God ever put in a woman's face.

Answer: Lizette Holcombe

There were three students running for top honors: Lizette, Rob Allen, and John Spencer. Lizette, who got 96.7%, bested the two boys. Her award was a copy of the book "The Complete Shakespeare".

Answer: Festus Allen

David didn't specify what sort of verses to memorize. Some of the children recited Psalms and well-known passages. But Festus recited the entire genealogy of Shem in Genesis 11, all of 22 verses!

Answer: Because he buried Bud-boy with his tail sticking out of the ground.

Creed buried Bud-boy that way so he could see if Christy was telling the truth. Christy had to secretly send a message to Creed's parents to see to it that Bud-boy was buried properly that night, tail and all.

Answer: Uncle Bogg McHone

Uncle Bogg was a gifted storyteller and a prominent figure at social gatherings. He presided over the dance at Ruby Mae's wedding to Will Beck.Toots, Vincent and Izaak are Tom's and Opal's children.

Answer: The Curlew

The first Neil MacNeill bought the ship so that his people could immigrate to America and escape the repressions imposed by the British after the Battle of Culloden. The Curlew made four round trips all in all and brought about eighteen hundred Scottish immigrants to America.

Answer: The shadow of the mountain in front of her house.

Although the Spencer house was on top of a ridge, the mountain opposite was so tall that at times it cast a very dark shadow, like a premature dusk, across the house. Fairlight was afraid of the shadow becasue she thought it was like the shadow of death. And she died of typhoid at the exact moment of the day that the shadow fell across her house and her face.

Answer: Drunk pigs

Christy felt something was wrong when she saw a pig walk across the yard wobbling from side to side. Then she realized she couldn't hear the usual pigs rooting around under the schoolhouse and ran to get David. That was when they discovered the moonshine. David explained that while horses would avoid water contaminated by mash from a moonshine still, pigs love nothing better. So when the pigs found the liquor, they got rip-roaring drunk and most of them passed out in the schoolyard!

Answer: Little Burl

Christy used to think that it was her privilege not to like everybody. But she grew to love and appreciate each of her students as individuals. One day while they were watching the birds at their feeding station, Christy told her students that God must love the birds so much to give them their beautiful plumage, and that He loved everything He made, whether bird, animal, flower, man, woman or child. That made such an impression on Little Burl that later that day he came up and hugged Christy and asked that memorable question. That was what helped Christy to appreciate, not just her students, but the other people in the Cove as well.