Dard’s stick moved in a series of lines up, down, up again. It made a pattern right enough and a clear one. Dessie came to look and then she laughed.
“Legs kicking, Daddy. My rhyme made a picture of legs kicking!”
Dard studied what he had just done. Dessie was right, legs kicked, one a little more exuberantly than the other. He smiled and then glanced up with a start, for Lars had struggled to his feet and was edging around the table without the aid of his crutches. He looked at the straggling lines his brows drawn together in a frown of concentration. From the breast pocket of his patched shirt he took out a scrap of peeled bark they used for paper-keeping it half-concealed in the palm of his hand so that what was noted on it remained a secret. Taking the writing stick from Dard he began to make notations, but the scratchings were all numbers not words.
Erasing with the side of his hand now and again he worked feverishly until at last he gave a quick nod as if in self-reassurance, and let his last combinations stand among the line pattern Dard had seen in Dessie’s nonsense rhyme.
“This is important—both of you—” his voice was almost a whip lash of impatient command “The pattern you see for Dessie’s lines, Dard—but—these words.” Slowly he recited, accenting heavily each word he spoke.
“Seven, nine, four and ten.
Twenty, sixty, and seven again.”
Dard studied the smudged diagram on the table top until he was sure that it was engraved on his memory for all time.
When he nodded, Lars turned and tossed the note chip into the fire. Then his eyes met his brother’s in a straight measuring look over the little girl’s bent head.
“It’s all yours, Dard, just remember—”