````Don't say you “_hate_” arithmetic,
````And find it dull and dry.
````You'll find it most astonishing
````If you sincerely try.=
|Farmer brown's boy used to feel that way, but he doesn't any more. He
never could see any use in puzzling over sums in school. He said that
there wasn't anything interesting in it; nothing but hard work. He used
to complain about it at home. Farmer Brown would listen awhile, then he
would say, “If you live long enough, my son, you will find that figures
talk and that they tell the most wonderful things.” There was always a
twinkle in his eyes when he said this.
Now of course Fanner Brown's boy knew that his father didn't mean
that figures could speak right out. Of course not. But he never could
understand just what he did mean, and he wasn't interested enough to try
to find out. So he would continue to scowl over his arithmetic and wish
the teacher wouldn't give such hard lessons. And when the long summer
vacation began, he just forgot all about figures and sums until after
he discovered Bob White and his family helping to rid the garden of bugs
and worms and seeds of weeds.
After he discovered them, he went down to the garden every day to watch
them. They soon found out that he wouldn't hurt them, and after that
they just paid no attention to him at all, but went right on with their
business all about him, and that business was the filling of their
stomachs with seeds and worms and bugs. One day Bob White ate twelve
caterpillars while Farmer Brown's boy was watching him. He got out a
stubby pencil and a scrap of paper.
“If every one of those Bob Whites eats twelve of those horrid worms at
one meal that would be--let me see.” He wrinkled his brows. “There are
Bob and Mrs. Bob and fifteen young Bobs and that makes seventeen. Now
if each eats twelve, that will make twelve times seventeen.” He put down
the figures on his bit of paper and worked over them for a few minutes.
“That makes 204 caterpillars for one meal,” he muttered, “and in one
month of thirty days they would eat 6120 if they only ate one meal a
day. But they eat ever so many meals a day and that means--” He stopped
to stare at the figures on the bit of paper with eyes round with wonder.
Then he whistled a little low whistle of sheer astonishment. “No
wonder I've got a good garden when those fellows are at work in it!” he
exclaimed.
[Illustration: 0090]
Then he sat down to watch Mrs. Bob catching cabbage-butterflies which
he knew were laying the eggs which would hatch out into the worms that
spoiled the cabbages. He counted the number she caught while she was
in sight. He did the same thing with another of the Bob Whites who
was catching cucumber-beetles, and with another who was hunting
grasshoppers. Then he did some more figuring on that bit of paper. When
he had finished he got up and went straight down to the cornfield where
Farmer Brown was at work.
“I know now what you meant when you used to tell me that figures talk,”
said he. “Why, they've told me more than I ever dreamed! They've told me
that the Bob Whites are the best friends we've got, and that the reason
that we've got the best garden anywhere around is just because they have
made it so. Why, those little brown birds are actually making money for
us, and we never guessed it!”