“Oh, there’s nothing like trying,” said Nan. “Who shall begin, girls?”
“You do it, Nan. You have the pen of a ready writer,” said Jo.
“I think you have the same brand of pen yourself,” Nan declared.
“Never mind, you begin, and when you have written the thing, hand it down the line.”
“If we had a blackboard I could write it on that and all could see it, but failing a blackboard there will be copies. I’ll underline the words to be guessed.” She set to work and in a few minutes had produced the following:
“The king put on his abacot, left his study of abiogeny, and called his abacist from his abacus. ‘Calculate,’ he said, ‘how many abele trees it would take to form an abatis one quarter of a mile long. May I be struck with ablepsy if I do not absterge my kingdom of those pestilent invaders who swarm in as thickly as acarids on an Abraham-man’s shin.’”
“Whewee!” cried Jo. “You certainly have done it, Nan. I’m blest if I know one of the words, but I’m good at guessing, and perhaps I shall strike one or two. Hand over.”
Nan passed the paper along and Jo began to scribble. “I call this an extremely intellectual game,” she remarked, as she wrote the last word. “Jack, you are a dabster. I don’t see how you ever thought of it. I am sure it does credit to an older and wiser head than yours. We’ll do this often and enlarge our vocabularies. Here’s your paper, and may you make good use of it.”
Jack, much elated, took the paper and set to work, but could guess very few of the words, though Jean did much less well. Language was not Jean’s strong point. No one was allowed to examine her own paper till all were provided with copies, and then they were given a certain length of time for their guessing.
“Time’s up,” cried Nan, who had been watching the clock.