"Any one might have guessed that!" muttered Lubin, rubbing his head with a disconsolate air, as if he already felt the bumps produced by the ladder of Spelling.
"Let's see these funny sentences on the steps," said Dick, "that we are forced to spell so finely. Such a comical ladder as this will make the papering of our walls a very slow affair."
As my readers may be curious to know whether they could have mounted the ladder without any step breaking beneath them, I will give them a few of the sentences to correct at their leisure. I write the faulty words in italics, though I hope that it is not needful to do so.
I hav to ants, too unkels to,
The kindest wons I ever new.
Except this presint, nevew deer,
I am sow glad to here your hear.
Gals sow shurts, and boys sew beens,
Labour is scene in various seens.
I eat ate appels at a fate,
Then took my leve and warked home strait.
The winds they blue; the sky was blew;
Tom, as they dashed the oshon threw,
Write overbored a poney through.
Our sovrin rains in joy and piece;
The summer reigns our crops increese;
The weery horse from rain release.
"I tell you what I'll do," said Lubin, after thoughtfully surveying the ladder from the top to the bottom: "I'll get good-natured little Nelly to stand below while I'm climbing the steps, and she shall call out to me the right spelling, so that I shall be certain to make no blunder."