When they heard about the boy prisoner in the tower of the Old House, they wished that they had seen him too. They were thrilled when Jack told them that they were all going to make giant black letters so that they might spell out words to the prisoner.
Peggy ran to see if Dimmy had any black ink, but she hadn’t.
“I’ve only the ordinary blue ink,” said Dimmy, rummaging in her desk. “But look - here’s some black charcoal. Will that do instead?”
“Oh yes!” cried Peggy. “Thank you, Dimmy. You won’t mind if we all play in Mike’s bedroom this evening, will you? You are having a friend to keep you company, aren’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said Dimmy. “I’ll be glad to have you four monkeys out of my way! You do what you like up there, but have the windows open so that you get plenty of fresh air.”
“Oh, we’ll be very particular about the windows, Dimmy!” said Peggy, laughing, and she ran off with the box of black charcoal.
She took the big white drawing sheets from her box, and went up to Mike’s bedroom. She gave some to each of the children, and opened the box of black charcoal.
“We shall make our hands black!” she said. “Isn’t the charcoal nice and black, Mike? The letters we make will show up well, and the prisoner will easily be able to read them.”
“Make them about a foot and a half tall and as thick as you can,” said Jack, sketching out a big letter A. “I’ll do the first six letters, you do the next six, Mike, Peggy the next six, and Nora the next. Whoever has finished first can do the odd two letters left. Look at my big A! I guess the prisoner could easily see that from his window.”
It was indeed a fine big A, nearly as high as the stool on which Jack was sitting. It was thickly done too, and surely anybody would be able to read it from quite a distance.