Now from this conversation Benny gathered that this type-business would take his sisters quite a while to prepare. So he was not much worried about his part of the work. In fact, he sorted out chips very cheerfully and watched his teachers with interest as they dug carefully around the letters with the two knives.
"We'll teach him two words to begin with," said Jess. "Then we won't have to make the whole alphabet at once. Let's begin to teach him see."
"That's easy," agreed Violet. "And then we won't have to make but two letters, s and e."
"And the other word will be me," cried Jess. "So only three pieces of type in all, Violet."
Jess cut the wiggly s, because she had the better knife, while Violet struggled with the e. Then Jess cut a wonderful m while Violet sewed the primer down the back, and gathered a cupful of blackberries. As she sat by, crushing the juice from the berries with a stick, Jess planned the ink pad.
"We'll have to use a small piece of the wash-cloth, I'm afraid," she said at last.
But finally they were obliged to cut off only the uneven bits of cloth which hung around the edges. These they used for stuffing for the pad, and covered them with a pocket which Violet carefully ripped from her apron. When this was sewed firmly into place, and put into a small saucer, Jess poured on the purple juice. Even Benny came up on his hands and knees to watch her stamp the first s. It came out beautifully on the first page of the primer, purple and clean-cut. The e was almost as good, and as for the m, Jess' hand shook with pure pride as she stamped it evenly on the page. At last the two words were completed. In fact, they were done long before Benny had the slightest idea his sisters were ready for him.
He came willingly enough for his first lesson, but he could not tell the two words apart.
"Don't you see, Benny?" Jess explained patiently. "This one with the wiggly s says see?" But Benny did not "see."
"I'll tell you, Jess," said Violet at last. "Let's print each word again on a separate card. That's the way they do at school. And then let him point to see."