“How do you spell not, Peg?” he inquired.
“K-n-o-t,” replied the old man, with a sigh.
Jimmy was silent for a long minute, his pen travelling slowly along the blue line and leaving a trail of wabbly red letters behind.
“‘Hough knot to los a letter,’” he read aloud, with honest pride in his achievement. “What’ll I say next, Peg?”
“Keep yer mind an’ yer eyes onto it till you get it t’ the person it’s meant for,” the old man said, with some sternness. “You’ve got to do that with ev’rythin’ you do,” he went on. “You can’t go moseyin’ ’long thinkin’ ’bout ev’rythin’ under the sun ’cept what you’re doin’. If you’re ploughin’, plough, an’ put all the grit an’ gumption you’ve got onto ploughin’. Most folks ain’t so smart ’at they c’n afford to run a d’partment store in their minds. Hold on! Don’t try to write all that. Jus’ say, pay attention to that letter. You know, Cap’n,” he went on impressively, “you come of awful fine stock. The Prestons was always smart; your great-gran’father, he was smarter ’an all possess, an’ your gran’father, he was jes’ the same.”
“An’ my father was, too,” interrupted Jimmy, eying the old man with a pucker between his brown eyes. “Wasn’t he smarter’n all possess, Peg?”
“‘Course he was, Cap’n,” agreed the old man hastily. “Up to the time he was took sick, he was A number one. An’ Barb’ry—I mean Miss Barb’ry, she’s awful smart an’ ambitious, too, fer a female. Oh, you’ll get along in the world, Cap’n, ’course you’ll get along! But losin’ letters is like losin’ other things, such as money an’—an’ health, an’ reputation an’—farms. It all comes o’ lettin’ yer mind kind o’ wander. You won’t do that, will you, Cap’n?”
The man’s voice trembled; he seemed anxiously intent on the little boy’s answer.
“I won’t, if I can help it, Peg,” Jimmy answered honestly. “But,” he added candidly, “I like to think ’bout things in school—all kind o’ things. When I look out the windows an’ see the trees wavin’ an’ hear the birds I like t’ p’tend I’m outdoors playin’.”
“Don’t you do it, Cap’n,” Peg spoke almost solemnly. “You keep a stiddy holt on them thoughts o’ yourn’ an’ nail ’em down to readin’, writin’, an’ ’rithmetic. If you ketch ’em a-wanderin’ out the window, you fetch ’em back an’ make ’em work. You c’n do it, every trip.”