"Well, how'd you get on at school?" asked Uncle Henry.
"I've got your desk," said Elizabeth Ann, looking at him curiously, at
his gray hair and wrinkled, weather-beaten face, and trying to think
what he must have looked like when he was a little boy like Ralph.
"So?" said Uncle Henry. "Well, let me tell you that's a mighty good
desk! Did you notice the deep groove in the top of it?"
Betsy nodded. She had wondered what that was used for.
"Well, that was the lead-pencil desk in the old days. When they couldn't
run down to the store to buy things, because there wasn't any store to
run to, how do you suppose they got their lead-pencils!" Elizabeth Ann
shook her head, incapable even of a guess. She had never thought before
but that lead-pencils grew in glass show-cases in stores.
"Well, sir," said Uncle Henry, "I'll tell you. They took a piece off the
lump of lead they made their bullets of, melted it over the fire in the
hearth down at the schoolhouse till it would run like water, and poured
it in that groove. When it cooled off, there was a long streak of solid
lead, about as big as one of our lead-pencils nowadays. They'd break
that up in shorter lengths, and there you'd have your lead-pencils, made
while you wait. Oh, I tell you in the old days folks knew how to take
care of themselves more than now."
"Why, weren't there any stores?" asked Elizabeth Ann.
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