Chapter: MORE EDUCATION


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

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

When Dr. McAllister drove into his yard he found a boy washing the
concrete drives as calmly as if nothing had happened. He chuckled
quietly, for he had stopped at the Fair Grounds for a few minutes
himself, and held a little conversation with the score-keeper. When
Henry faithfully repeated the list of winners, however, he said nothing
about 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 of
mine who put two hundred dollars in the savings bank and forgot all
about it. He left it in there till he died, and it came to me. It
amounted 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-five
dollars (for he never thought of putting it in the bank before Jess saw
it), he found a delicious lunch waiting for him. Jess had boiled the
little vegetables in clear water, and the moment they were done she had
drained off the water in a remarkable drainer, and heaped them on the
biggest dish with melted butter on top.

His family almost forgot to eat while Henry recounted the details of the
exciting race. And when he showed them the silver cup and the money they
actually 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 can
use that name for your bank book."

"So I can!" said Henry, delighted. "I'll put it in the bank this very
afternoon. 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. "You
just 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 have
saved all the wrapping paper off the bundles, you know."

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

"Violet," she cried at last, "remember those chips? We could whittle out
letters 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 would
take his sisters quite a while to prepare. So he was not much worried
about his part of the work. In fact, he sorted out chips very cheerfully
and watched his teachers with interest as they dug carefully around the
letters with the two knives.

"We'll teach him two words to begin with," said Jess. "Then we won't
have 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 two
letters, _s_ and _e_."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The girls did this, using squares of stiff brown paper. Then they called
Benny. Very carefully, Jess explained again which word said _see_,
hissing like a huge snake to show him how the _s_ sounded. Then she
mixed 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 Watch
cock his head on one side and gravely put his paw on the center of the
word! Now, this was only an accident. Watch did not really know one of
the words from the other. But Benny thought he did. And was he going to
let a dog get ahead of him? Not Benny! In less time than it takes to
tell 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 you
are living outdoors all the time you do not forget things like that. In
fact 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 into
red-hot ashes and began to topple over one by one into the glowing pile,
Jess laughed delightedly. She had already scrubbed the smooth potatoes
and dried them carefully. She now poked them one by one into the glowing
ashes with a stick from a birch tree. Whenever a potato lit up
dangerously she gave it a poke into a new position. And when Henry found
her, 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 the
pine 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 on
top."

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

"Ah!" said Henry.

"It's good," said Benny blissfully. It was about the most successful
meal of all, in fact. When the children in later years recalled their
different feasts, they always came back to the baked potatoes roasted in
the ashes of the pine cones. Henry said it was because they were poked
with a black-birch stick. Benny said it was because Jess nearly burned
them up. Jess herself said maybe it was the remarkable salt shaker which
had 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 the
new primer, and allow Benny to display his first reading lesson. Henry,
greatly taken with the idea, sat up until it was almost dark, chipping
out the remaining letters of the alphabet.

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

[Illustration:

    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 said
his knife must have slipped when he was making the _a_, so they were
even, after all.

 Days go by. The children keep finding garbage treasures; Henry continues to work for Dr. Moore. Very exciting news: Henry buys Benny some new socks. The girls make Benny a stuffed bear from his old socks. Benny wants his bear to have a long tail even though bears don't have long tails. Whatever, Benny--you do you. The bear is finished, and Benny names it Stockings because that's the old-fashioned word for socks. Jessie gives Benny a haircut, so Benny decides to cut Watch the dog's hair. This does not go well. When he shows Jessie and Violet Watch's haircut, they laugh and laugh. Watch is a really good sport about it. Violet is laughing so hard she cries--but then she keeps crying and won't stop. Turns out she's not hysterical; she's sick. Jessie puts Violet to bed in the boxcar. Her forehead is really hot. Henry comes home, and he and Jessie discuss taking Violet to the hospital. Trouble is, they're worried it will put their grandfather on their trail. Violet is shaking all over, so Jessie covers her with pine needles. Let's give her points for trying. Henry decides that Violet should see Dr. Moore, so he runs into town. Dr. Moore drives back to the boxcar without asking where to go, and when he parks the car, he finds the boxcar straightaway. Odd, isn't it? Dr. Moore decides to take Violet back to his place. Once there, he puts her to bed, and Mrs. Moore and the cook tend to her. Don't worry--the other children are going to stay at Dr. Moore's, too. Violet is so ill that Dr. Moore stays up with her all night. In the morning, a man comes to see Dr. Moore. He mumbles something about $5,000, so we can guess he is Mr. Alden. While the man waits for the doctor, Benny keeps him entertained. Benny also tells the man that his sister Violet is ill. Benny and Mr. Alden are getting along really well. Benny asks Mr. Alden if he has a dog, but Mr. Alden's dog is dead. Bummer. Oh, here's Watch the dog, very much alive. Hi, Watch. Dr. Moore comes in and sends Benny off to play. The doctor tells Mr. Alden that Benny is his grandchild, and Mr. Alden seems excited but confused. Now, Dr. Moore tells Mr. Alden about Henry. Mr. Alden is stoked because he remembers Henry from Field Day.

