HONEST PHYL
‘Multiplication
Is a vexation.’
IT was a bright and beautiful afternoon in March, the song of the
blackbird and thrush, and the loud chirp of the titmouse, came merrily
through the schoolroom window, mixed with the sounds of happy voices in
the garden; the western sun shone brightly in, and tinged the white
wainscoted wall with yellow light; the cat sat in the window-seat,
winking at the sun, and sleepily whisking her tail for the amusement of
her kitten, which was darting to and fro, and patting her on the head, in
the hope of rousing her to some more active sport.
But in the midst of all these joyous sights and sounds, was heard a
dolorous voice repeating, ‘three and four are—three and four are—oh dear!
they are—seven, no, but I do not think it is a four after all, is it not
a one? Oh dear!’ And on the floor lay Phyllis, her back to the window,
kicking her feet slowly up and down, and yawning and groaning over her
slate.
Presently the door opened, and Claude looked in, and very nearly departed
again instantly, for Phyllis at that moment made a horrible squeaking
with her slate-pencil, the sound above all others that he disliked. He,
however, stopped, and asked where Emily was.
‘Out in the garden,’ answered Phyllis, with a tremendous yawn.
‘What are you doing here, looking so piteous?’ said Claude.
‘My sum,’ said Phyllis.
‘Is this your time of day for arithmetic?’ asked he.
‘No,’ said Phyllis, ‘only I had not done it by one o’clock to-day, and
Lily said I must finish after learning my lessons for to-morrow, but I do
not think I shall ever have done, it is so hard. Oh!’ (another stretch
and a yawn, verging on a howl), ‘and Jane and Ada are sowing the
flower-seeds. Oh dear! Oh dear!’ and Phyllis’s face contracted, in
readiness to cry.
‘And is that the best position for doing sums?’ said Claude.
‘I was obliged to lie down here to get out of the way of Ada’s sum,’ said
Phyllis, getting up.
‘Get out of the way of Ada’s sum?’ repeated Claude.
‘Yes, she left it on the table where I was sitting, where I could see it,
and it is this very one, so I must not look at it; I wish I could do sums
as fast as she can.’
‘Could you not have turned the other side of the slate upwards?’ said
Claude, smiling.
‘So I could!’ said Phyllis, as if a new light had broken in upon her.
‘But then I wanted to be out of sight of pussy, for I could not think a
bit, while the kitten was at play so prettily, and I kicked my heels to
keep from hearing the voices in the garden, for it does make me so
unhappy!’
Some good-natured brothers would have told the little girl not to mind,
and sent her out to enjoy herself, but Claude respected Phyllis’s honesty
too much to do so, and he said, ‘Well, Phyl, let me see the sum, and we
will try if we cannot conquer it between us.’
Phyllis’s face cleared up in an instant, as she brought the slate to her
brother.
‘What is this?’ said he; ‘I do not understand.’
‘Compound Addition,’ said Phyllis, ‘I did one with Emily yesterday, and
this is the second.’
‘Oh! these are marks between the pounds, shillings, and pence,’ said
Claude, ‘I took them for elevens; well, I do not wonder at your troubles,
I could not do this sum as it is set.’
‘Could not you, indeed?’ cried Phyllis, quite delighted.
‘No, indeed,’ said Claude. ‘Suppose we set it again, more clearly; but
how is this? When I was in the schoolroom we always had a sponge
fastened to the slate.’
‘Yes,’ said Phyllis, ‘I had one before Eleanor went, but my string broke,
and I lost it, and Emily always forgets to give me another. I will run
and wash the slate in the nursery; but how shall we know what the sum
is?’
‘Why, I suppose I may look at Ada’s slate, though you must not,’ said
Claude, laughing to himself at poor little honest simplicity, as he
applied himself to cut a new point to her very stumpy slate-pencil, and
she scampered away, and returned in a moment with her clean slate.
‘Oh, how nice and fresh it all looks!’ said she as he set down the clear
large figures. ‘I cannot think how you can do it so evenly.’
‘Now, Phyl, do not let the pencil scream if you can help it.’
Claude found that Phyllis’s great difficulty was with the farthings. She
could not understand the fractional figures, and only knew thus far, that
‘Emily said it never meant four.’
Claude began explaining, but his first attempt was far too scientific.
Phyllis gave a desponding sigh, looking so mystified, that he began to
believe that she was hopelessly dull, and to repent of having offered to
help her; but at last, by means of dividing a card into four pieces, he
succeeded in making her comprehend him, and her eyes grew bright with the
pleasure of understanding.
Even then the difficulties were not conquered, her addition was very
slow, and dividing by twelve and twenty seemed endless work; at length
the last figure of the pounds was set down, the slate was compared with
Adeline’s, and the sum pronounced to be right. Phyllis capered up to the
kitten and tossed it up in the air in her joy, then coming slowly back to
her brother, she said with a strange, awkward air, hanging down her head,
‘Claude, I’ll tell you what—’
‘Well, what?’ said Claude.
‘I should like to kiss you.’
Then away she bounded, clattered down stairs, and flew across the lawn to
tell every one she met that Claude had helped her to do her sum, and that
it was quite right.
‘Did you expect that it would be too hard for him, Phyl?’ said Jane,
laughing.
‘No,’ said Phyllis, ‘but he said he could not do it as it was set.’
‘And whose fault was that?’ said Jane.
‘Oh! but he showed me how to set it better,’ said Phyllis, ‘and he said
that when he learnt the beginning of fractions, he thought them as hard
as I do.’
‘Fractions!’ said Jane, ‘you do not fancy you have come to fractions yet!
Fine work you will make of them when you do!’
In the evening, as soon as the children were gone to bed, Jane took a
paper out of her work-basket, saying, ‘There, Emily, is my account of
Phyl’s scrapes through this whole week; I told you I should write them
all down.’
‘How kind!’ muttered Claude.
Regardless of her brother, who had not looked up from his book, Jane
began reading her list of poor Phyllis’s misadventures. ‘On Monday she
tore her frock by climbing a laurel-tree, to look at a blackbird’s nest.’
‘I gave her leave,’ said Emily. ‘Rachel had ordered her not to climb;
and she was crying because she could not see the nest that Wat Greenwood
had found.’
‘On Tuesday she cried over her French grammar, and tore a leaf out of the
old spelling-book.’
‘That was nearly out before,’ said Emily, ‘Maurice and Redgie spoilt that
long ago.’
‘I do not know of anything on Wednesday, but on Thursday she threw Ada
down the steps out of the nursery.’
‘Oh! that accounts for the dreadful screaming that I heard,’ said Claude;
‘I forgot to ask the meaning of it.’
‘I am sure it was Phyl that was the most dismayed, and cried the
loudest,’ said Lily.
‘That she always does,’ said Jane. ‘On Friday we had an uproar in the
schoolroom about her hemming, and on Saturday she tumbled into a wet
ditch, and tore her bonnet in the brambles; on Sunday, she twisted her
ancles together at church.’
‘Well, there I did chance to observe her,’ said Lily, ‘there seemed to be
a constant struggle between her ancles and herself, they were continually
coming lovingly together, but were separated the next moment.’
‘And to-day this sum,’ said Jane; ‘seven scrapes in one week! I really
am of opinion, as Rachel says when she is angry, that school is the best
place for her.’
‘I think so too,’ said Claude.
‘I do not know,’ said Emily, ‘she is very troublesome, but—’
‘Oh, Claude!’ cried Lily, ‘you do not mean that you would have that poor
dear merry Master Phyl sent to school, she would pine away like a wild
bird in a cage; but papa will never think of such a thing.’
‘If I thought of her being sent to school,’ said Claude, ‘it would be to
shield her from—the rule of love.’
‘Oh! you think we are too indulgent,’ said Emily; ‘perhaps we are, but
you know we cannot torment a poor child all day long.’
‘If you call the way you treat her indulgent, I should like to know what
you call severe.’
‘What do you mean, Claude?’ said Emily.
‘I call your indulgence something like the tender mercies of the wicked,’
said Claude. ‘On a fine day, when every one is taking their pleasure in
the garden, to shut an unhappy child up in the schoolroom, with a hard
sum that you have not taken the trouble to teach her how to do, and late
in the day, when no one’s head is clear for difficult arithmetic—’
‘Hard sum do you call it?’ said Jane.
‘Indeed I explained it to her,’ said Emily.
‘And well she understood you,’ said Claude.
‘She might have learnt if she had attended,’ said Emily; ‘Ada understood
clearly, with the same explanation.’
‘And do not you be too proud of the effect of your instructions, Claude,’
said Jane, ‘for when honest Phyl came into the garden, she did not know
farthings from fractions.’
‘And pray, Mrs. Senior Wrangler,’ said Claude, ‘will you tell me where is
the difference between a half-penny and half a penny?’
After a good laugh at Jane’s expense, Emily went on, ‘Now, Claude, I will
tell you how it happened; Phyllis is so slow, and dawdles over her
lessons so long, that it is quite a labour to hear her; Ada is quick
enough, but if you were to hear Phyllis say one column of spelling, you
would know what misery is. Then before she has half finished, the clock
strikes one, it is time to read, and the lessons are put off till the
afternoon. I certainly did not know that she was about her sum all that
time, or I would have sent her out as I did on Saturday.’
‘And the reading at one is as fixed as fate,’ said Claude.
‘Oh, no!’ said Jane, ‘when we were about old “Russell,” we did not begin
till nearly two, but since we have been reading this book, Lily will
never let us rest till we begin; she walks up and down, and hurries and
worries and—’
‘Yes,’ said Emily, in a murmuring voice, ‘we should do better if Lily
would not make such a point of that one thing; but she never minds what
else is cut short, and she never thinks of helping me. It never seems to
enter her head how much I have on my hands, and no one does anything to
help me.’
‘Oh, Emily! you never asked me,’ said Lily.
‘I knew you would not like it,’ said Emily. ‘No, it is not my way to
complain, people may see how to help me if they choose to do it.’
‘Lily, Lily, take care,’ said Claude, in a low voice; ‘is not the rule
you admire, the rule of love of yourself?’
‘Oh, Claude!’ returned Lily, ‘do not say so, you know it was Emily that I
called an example of it, not myself, and see how forbearing she has been.
Now I see that I am really wanted, I will help. It must be love, not
duty, that calls me to the schoolroom, for no one ever said that was my
province.’
‘Poor duty! you give it a very narrow boundary.’
Lilias, who, to say the truth, had been made more careful of her own
conduct, by the wish to establish her principle, really betook herself to
the schoolroom for an hour every morning, with a desire to be useful.
She thought she did great things in undertaking those tasks of Phyllis’s
which Emily most disliked. But Lilias was neither patient nor humble
enough to be a good teacher, though she could explain difficult rules in
a sensible way. She could not, or would not, understand the difference
between dulness and inattention; her sharp hasty manner would frighten
away all her pupil’s powers of comprehension; she sometimes fell into the
great error of scolding, when Phyllis was doing her best, and the poor
child’s tears flowed more frequently than ever.
Emily’s gentle manner made her instructions far more agreeable, though
she was often neither clear nor correct in her explanations; she was
contented if the lessons were droned through in any manner, so long as
she could say they were done; she disliked a disturbance, and overlooked
or half corrected mistakes rather than cause a cry. Phyllis naturally
preferred being taught by her, and Lily was vexed and unwilling to
persevere. She went to the schoolroom expecting to be annoyed, created
vexation for herself, and taught in anything but a loving spirit. Still,
however, the thought of Claude, and the wish to do more than her duty,
kept her constant to her promise, and her love of seeing things well done
was useful, though sadly counterbalanced by her deficiency in temper and
patience.