The little instrument seemed, in fact, trying to control itself. Its
movements became less wild and large; the zigzags began to shape
themselves into something like characters. Jackson's wasted face gave no
token of interest; Whitwell laid half his gaunt length across the table
in the endeavor to make out some meaning in them; the Canuck, with his
hands crossed on his stomach, smoked on, with the same gleam in his pipe
and eye.
The planchette suddenly stood motionless.
"She done?" murmured Whitwell.
"I guess she is, for a spell, anyway," said Jackson, wearily.
"Let's try to make out what she says." Whitwell drew the sheets toward
himself and Westover, who sat next him. "You've got to look for the
letters everywhere. Sometimes she'll give you fair and square writin',
and then again she'll slat the letters down every which way, and you've
got to hunt 'em out for yourself. Here's a B I've got. That begins along
pretty early in the alphabet. Let's see what we can find next."
Westover fancied he could make out an F and a T.
Whitwell exulted in an unmistakable K and N; and he made sure of an I,
and an E. The painter was not so sure of an S. "Well, call it an S," said
Whitwell. "And I guess I've got an O here, and an H. Hello! Here's an A
as large as life. Pootty much of a mixture."
"Yes; I don't see that we're much better off than we were before," said
Westover.
"Well, I don't know about that," said Whitwell.
"Write 'em down in a row and see if we can't pick out some sense. I've
had worse finds than this; no vowels at all sometimes; but here's three."
He wrote the letters down, while Jackson leaned back against the wall, in
patient quiet.
"Well, sir," said Whitwell, pushing the paper, where he had written the
letters in a line, to Westover, "make anything out of 'em?"