Dictionaries are terrible books. Jolly had never dreamed there were so many words in the world,—pages and pages and pages of ’em! The prospect of ever finding one particular word was disheartening, but he plunged in sturdily, determination written on every freckle.
“Don’t begin at the first page!” cried Morry, hastily. “Begin at R,—it’s more than half-way through. R-e,—r-e-c,—that way.”
Jolly turned over endless pages, trailed laboriously his little, blunt finger up and down endless columns, wet his lips with the red tip of his tongue endless times,—wished ’twas over. He had meant to begin at the beginning and keep on till he got to a w-r-e-c-k,—at Number Seven they spelled it that way. Hadn’t he lost a mark for spelling it without a “w”? But of course if folks preferred the r kind—
“Hi!” the blunt finger leaped into space and waved triumphantly. “R-e-c-k,—I got him!”
“Not ‘k,’—there isn’t any ‘k.’ Go backwards till you drop it, Jolly,—you dropped it?”
Dictionaries are terrible,—still, leaving a letter off o’ the end isn’t as bad as off o’ the front. Jolly retraced his steps patiently.
“I’ve dropped it,” he announced in time.
Morry was breathing hard, too. Looking up words with other people’s fore-fingers is pretty tough.
“Now, the second story,—‘rec’ is the first,” he explained. “You must find ‘rec-om’ now, you know.”
No, Jolly did not know, but he went back to the work undaunted. “We’ll tree him,” he said, cheerily, “but I think I could do it easier if I whistled”—