ink it must have
been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long
time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the
hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print
and smear this epistle:--

"MI DEER JO i OPE U R KR WITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE
U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN
BLEVE ME INF XN PIP."

There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by
letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered
this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe
received it as a miracle of erudition.

"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, "what a
scholar you are! An't you?"

"I should like to be," said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; with
a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

"Why, here's a J," said Joe, "and a O equal to anythink! Here's a J and
a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe."

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this
monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I
accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit
his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to
embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I
should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, "Ah! But read the
rest, Jo."

"The rest, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye,
"One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three J-O,
Joes in it, Pip!"

I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole
letter.

"Astonishing!" said Joe, when I had finished. "You ARE a scholar."

"How do you spell Gargery, Joe?" I asked him, with a modest patronage.

"I don't spell it at all," said Joe.

"But supposing you did?"

"It can't be supposed," said Joe. "Tho' I'm uncommon fond of reading,
too."

"Are you, Joe?"

"On-common. Give me," said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper, and
sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!" he continued,
after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a J and a O, and
says you, "Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe, how interesting reading is!"

I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its
infancy, Pursuing the subject, I inquired,--

"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?"

"No, Pip.