The Box-Car Children

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  MORE EDUCATION

  With twenty-five dollars in his hand, Henry felt like a millionaire ashe edged through the crowd to the gate.

  "That's the boy," he heard many a person say when he was forced to holdhis silver cup in view out of harm's way.

  When Dr. McAllister drove into his yard he found a boy washing theconcrete drives as calmly as if nothing had happened. He chuckledquietly, for he had stopped at the Fair Grounds for a few minuteshimself, and held a little conversation with the score-keeper. WhenHenry faithfully repeated the list of winners, however, he said nothingabout it.

  "What are you going to do with the prize?" queried Dr. McAllister.

  "Put it in the savings bank, I guess," replied Henry.

  "Have you an account?" asked his friend.

  "No, but Jess says it's high time we started one."

  "Good for Jess," said the doctor absently. "I remember an old uncle ofmine who put two hundred dollars in the savings bank and forgot allabout it. He left it in there till he died, and it came to me. Itamounted to sixteen hundred dollars."

  "Whew!" said Henry.

  "He left it alone for over forty years, you see," explained Dr.McAllister.

  When Henry arrived at his little home in the woods with the twenty-fivedollars (for he never thought of putting it in the bank before Jess sawit), he found a delicious lunch waiting for him. Jess had boiled thelittle vegetables in clear water, and the moment they were done she haddrained off the water in a remarkable drainer, and heaped them on thebiggest dish with melted butter on top.

  His family almost forgot to eat while Henry recounted the details of theexciting race. And when he showed them the silver cup and the money theyactually did stop eating, hungry as they were.

  "I said my name was Henry James," repeated Henry.

  "That's all right. So it is," affirmed Jess. "It's clever, too. You canuse that name for your bank book."

  "So I can!" said Henry, delighted. "I'll put it in the bank this veryafternoon. And by the way, I brought something for dinner tonight."

  Jess looked in the bag. There were a dozen smooth, brown potatoes.

  "I know how to cook those," said Jess, nodding her head wisely. "Youjust wait!"

  "Can't wait, hardly," Henry called back as he went to work.

  When he had gone, Benny frolicked around noisily with the dog.

  "Benny," Jess exclaimed suddenly, as she hung her dish towels up to dry,"it's high time you learned to read."

  "No school _now_," said Benny hopefully.

  "No, but I can teach you. If I only had a primer!"

  "Let's make one," suggested Violet, shaking her hair back. "We havesaved all the wrapping paper off the bundles, you know."

  Jess was staring off into space, as she always did when she had a brightidea.

  "Violet," she cried at last, "remember those chips? We could whittle outletters like type--make each letter backwards, you know."

  "And stamp them on paper!" finished Violet.

  "There would be only twenty-six in all. It wouldn't be awfully hard,"said Jess. "We wouldn't bother with capitals."

  "What could we use for ink?" Violet wondered, wrinkling her forehead.

  "Blackberry juice!" cried Jess. The two girls clapped their hands."Won't Henry be surprised when he finds that Benny can read?"

  Now from this conversation Benny gathered that this type-business wouldtake his sisters quite a while to prepare. So he was not much worriedabout his part of the work. In fact, he sorted out chips very cheerfullyand watched his teachers with interest as they dug carefully around theletters with the two knives.

  "We'll teach him two words to begin with," said Jess. "Then we won'thave to make the whole alphabet at once. Let's begin to teach him_see_."

  "That's easy," agreed Violet. "And then we won't have to make but twoletters, _s_ and _e_."

  "And the other word will be _me_," cried Jess. "So only three pieces oftype in all, Violet."

  Jess cut the wiggly _s_, because she had the better knife, while Violetstruggled with the _e_. Then Jess cut a wonderful _m_ while Violetsewed the primer down the back, and gathered a cupful of blackberries.As she sat by, crushing the juice from the berries with a stick, Jessplanned the ink pad.

  "We'll have to use a small piece of the wash-cloth, I'm afraid," shesaid at last.

  But finally they were obliged to cut off only the uneven bits of clothwhich hung around the edges. These they used for stuffing for the pad,and covered them with a pocket which Violet carefully ripped from herapron. When this was sewed firmly into place, and put into a smallsaucer, Jess poured on the purple juice. Even Benny came up on his handsand knees to watch her stamp the first _s_. It came out beautifully onthe first page of the primer, purple and clean-cut. The _e_ was almostas good, and as for the _m_, Jess' hand shook with pure pride as shestamped it evenly on the page. At last the two words were completed. Infact, they were done long before Benny had the slightest idea hissisters were ready for him.

  He came willingly enough for his first lesson, but he could not tell thetwo words apart.

  "Don't you see, Benny?" Jess explained patiently. "This one with thewiggly _s_ says _see_?" But Benny did not "see."

  "I'll tell you, Jess," said Violet at last. "Let's print each word againon a separate card. That's the way they do at school. And then let himpoint to _see_."

  The girls did this, using squares of stiff brown paper. Then they calledBenny. Very carefully, Jess explained again which word said _see_,hissing like a huge snake to show him how the _s_ sounded. Then shemixed the cards and said encouragingly, "Now, Benny, point to_s-s-s-ee_."

  Benny did not move. He sat with his finger on his lip.

  But the children were nearly petrified with astonishment to see Watchcock his head on one side and gravely put his paw on the center of theword! Now, this was only an accident. Watch did not really know one ofthe words from the other. But Benny thought he did. And was he going tolet a dog get ahead of him? Not Benny! In less time than it takes totell it, Benny had learned both words perfectly.

  "Good old Watch," said Jess.

  "It isn't really hard at all," said Benny. "Is it, Watch?"

  During all this experiment Jess had not forgotten her dinner. When youare living outdoors all the time you do not forget things like that. Infact both girls had learned to tell the time very accurately by the sun.

  Jess started up a beautiful little fire of cones. As they turned intored-hot ashes and began to topple over one by one into the glowing pile,Jess laughed delightedly. She had already scrubbed the smooth potatoesand dried them carefully. She now poked them one by one into the glowingashes with a stick from a birch tree. Whenever a potato lit updangerously she gave it a poke into a new position. And when Henry foundher, she was just rolling the charred balls out onto the flat stones.

  "Burned 'em up?" queried Henry.

  "Burned, nothing!" cried Jess energetically. "You just wait!"

  "Can't wait, hardly," replied Henry smiling.

  "You said that a long time ago," said Benny.

  "Well, isn't it true?" demanded Henry, rolling his brother over on thepine needles.

  "Come," said Violet breathlessly, forgetting to ring the bell.

  "Hold them with leaves," directed Jess, "because they're terribly hot.Knock them on the side and scoop them out with a spoon and put butter ontop."

  The children did as the little cook requested, sprinkled on a littlesalt from the salt shaker, and took a taste.

  "Ah!" said Henry.

  "It's good," said Benny blissfully. It was about the most successfulmeal of all, in fact. When the children in later years recalled theirdifferent feasts, they always came back to the baked potatoes roasted inthe ashes of the pine cones. Henry said it was because they were pokedwith a black-birch stick. Benny said it was because Jess nearly burnedthem up. Jess herself said maybe it was the remarkable salt shaker whichhad to stand on its head always, because there was no floor to it.

  After supper
the children still were not too sleepy to show Henry thenew primer, and allow Benny to display his first reading lesson. Henry,greatly taken with the idea, sat up until it was almost dark, chippingout the remaining letters of the alphabet.

  If you should ever care to see this interesting primer, which wasfinally ten pages in length, you might examine this faithful copy ofits first page, which required four days for its completion:

  page 1 See me See me O O See me Come Come to me Come to see me cat rat]

  Henry always insisted that the rat's tail was too long, but Jess saidhis knife must have slipped when he was making the _a_, so they wereeven, after all.