Great Expectations
Page 39"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,
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."
"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."
"Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?"
"Well, Pip," said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to
between the lower bars; "I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given
to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at
my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did,
indeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only
to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn't hammer at his
anwil.--You're a listening and understanding, Pip?"