[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Title page]
THE
LUCY BOOKS,
BY THE
Author of the Rollo Books.
_New York_,
CLARK AUSTIN & CO.
205 BROADWAY.
COUSIN LUCY
AT STUDY.
BY THE
AUTHOR OF THE ROLLO BOOKS.
A NEW EDITION,
REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.
NEW YORK:
CLARK, AUSTIN & SMITH,
3 PARK ROW AND 3 ANN-STREET.
1854.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841,
BY T. H. CARTER,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
PREFACE.
Two volumes of a series of little books, corresponding, in their
general style and characteristics, with the Rollo Books for boys,
but designed more particularly for the other sex, have already been
published, under the names of COUSIN LUCY’S CONVERSATIONS, and COUSIN
LUCY’S STORIES. This, and its companion, COUSIN LUCY AT PLAY, are now
offered to the public, in the hope that the little readers, into whose
hands they may fall, may be interested, and, in some degree at least,
profited, by the perusal of them.
CONTENTS.
Page.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW SLATE, 9
CHAPTER II.
A WAGON RIDE, 23
CHAPTER III.
THE MAGAZINE, 37
CHAPTER IV.
WHERE IS ROYAL? 48
CHAPTER V.
ACCOUNTS, 62
CHAPTER VI.
MARY JAY, 72
CHAPTER VII.
THE RECESS, 85
CHAPTER VIII.
MARY JAY’S INSTRUCTIONS, 95
CHAPTER IX.
JUST SAVED, 108
CHAPTER X.
DIVER, 119
CHAPTER XI.
A CONVERSATION, 136
CHAPTER XII.
INTERRUPTION, 146
CHAPTER XIII.
THE THEORY OF INTERRUPTION, 160
LUCY’S STUDIES
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW SLATE.
One day, when Lucy was about five years old, her mother came home from
the city. Lucy’s brother Royal had been to the city with his mother;
but Lucy had remained at home. Royal went to drive the chaise in which
his mother rode.
When Lucy’s mother had got out of the chaise, Royal handed her some
parcels, which were in the back part of the seat. There was one thin,
flat parcel, which was partly behind the cushion. Royal held this up to
Lucy, saying,--
“Lucy! Lucy!--something for you.”
Lucy took it, and ran into the house. She asked her mother if she might
open it.
“Yes,” said her mother, “but be careful.”
So Lucy ran to the sofa, and sat down to open her parcel. Royal came up
to her, and said,--
“Let me open it for you, Lucy. _I_ know how to open it.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I want to open it myself.”
“You can’t open it,” said Royal; and, as he spoke, he took hold of the
parcel, and attempted gently to take it away from Lucy. “You can’t open
it. You can’t untie the string; it is in a hard knot. I saw the man tie
it myself.”
“Royal! Royal!” said Lucy, in a tone of displeasure, “let my book
alone.”
“It isn’t a book,” said Royal; “and you can’t open it, to see what it
is.”
Royal did wrong. He ought to have reflected that it would have given
Lucy great pleasure to open the parcel, and he ought to have been
willing that she should open it, and to have been contented with giving
her such assistance as she needed. However, he knew that it would be
wrong for him to take the parcel away by force, and so he let go of it,
and sat by, to see Lucy open it.
Lucy found that she could not untie the knot. Then she looked about
to find her scissors, to cut it; for she had a pair of scissors, which
her mother had bought for her, some time before; but, then, as she was
accustomed to leave them any where about the house, wherever she had
been using them, they were continually getting lost; and she could not
find them now. Royal, instead of helping her, seemed rather inclined to
tease and trouble her.
While Lucy was thus walking about the room, sometimes looking for her
scissors, and sometimes stopping to make one more attempt to untie the
knot without them, Miss Anne came into the room. Miss Anne was a young
lady about seventeen years of age. Miss Anne was always very kind to
Lucy.
“Miss Anne,” said Lucy, “do you know where my scissors are?”
“No,” said Miss Anne; “can’t you get your parcel open?”
“No,” said Lucy; “I can’t untie the knot; and I can’t find my scissors
to cut it.”
Miss Anne sat down in a little rocking-chair, and asked Lucy to come to
her, and let her look at it.
“See what a hard knot,” said she.
“I should have been willing to have untied it for her,” said Royal,
“but she would not let me.”
Miss Anne did not reply to this remark, for she supposed that probably
Royal had offered his help to Lucy in some way which was not pleasant
to her.
“Should you like to have me loosen the knot a little?” she said to
Lucy; “and then perhaps you can untie it.”
“O yes,” answered Lucy; and she put the parcel into Miss Anne’s hands.
Miss Anne, who understood the convolutions of a knot better than Lucy,
and who consequently knew just where to attempt to open it, soon got it
loosened. Lucy watched her, afraid that she would open it too much.
“There,” said she, “Miss Anne, there, that will do. I can open it now.”
So Miss Anne put the parcel into her hands, and Lucy now succeeded in
untying the knot. After taking off the string, she opened the paper,
and there came out a handsome slate, of a beautiful purple color, and a
red morocco frame.
“O, what a pretty slate!” said Lucy.
Near one corner of the slate was a sort of socket, made by a
duplicature of the morocco, and Lucy observed a slate pencil sticking
into it. She pulled it out, and said,--
“O, here is a pencil; I mean to mark on my slate.”
“I expect you are going to study arithmetic,” said Miss Anne.
“Yes,” said Royal, “she is, and I am going to teach her.”
“No,” said Lucy, “I would rather have Miss Anne to teach me.”
“No, Lucy,” replied Royal; “mother said, if I would teach you to add
little sums in arithmetic, without any carrying, she would give us a
paint-box.”
“Give who a paint-box?” said Lucy.
“Why, you and me,” replied Royal.
“Well,” said Lucy, “then you may teach me.”
Accordingly Lucy went and sat down by Royal upon the sofa, to take her
first lesson then, as they were both in haste to get the paint-box.
Royal set Lucy a sum; but, on looking at it after he had set it, he
rubbed it out, and set another. This also he rubbed out. At length Lucy
said,--
“Why, Royal, what makes you rub them all out?”
“Because,” said Royal, “there’s carrying in them.”
“I don’t know what you mean by carrying,” said Lucy.
Royal attempted to explain it to her, but she could not understand.
He told her that, when she added up a column, and the amount was in
two figures, she must carry one of them. But Lucy could not understand
at all. She did not know what he meant by a “column,” or an “amount,”
or by any thing being “in two figures.” In the mean time, Miss Anne,
who had seated herself at the window, with her sewing, went on quietly
attending to her work, until at length the conversation between Royal
and Lucy came to be almost a dispute; and she said,--
“Royal, I thought you were not going to teach Lucy carrying; but only
sums that had no carrying in them.”
“So I was,” said Royal; “but then she asked me herself what carrying
was, and so I had to tell her.”
“No,” replied Miss Anne, “you need not have attempted to explain it to
her fully. It would have been enough to have told her, that it was a
difficult process in addition, which she would understand by and by.”
“Why, Miss Anne,” replied Royal, “I think it is very _easy_.”
“It may be easy to you, now you understand it, but difficult to her,”
replied Miss Anne.
“Well,” said Royal, “then I won’t explain that to you now, Lucy. I’ll
teach you what carrying is when we come to it.”
So he went to work, to set Lucy a sum, trying to make the figures of
so small a value, that there should be no carrying in any column. But
he did not succeed very well. He made the sums so large that, although
he made all the figures ones, twos, threes, and fours, yet, in some
of the columns, the amount, on adding them, would come more than ten;
and of course there would be something to carry. At last, however, he
succeeded; and then he began to teach Lucy how to add up.
But the work was altogether too difficult for Lucy’s powers. In the
first place, she did not know the figures, and she could not remember
which was two, and which was three. Lucy tried to follow him in his
explanation and calculation, but she soon became hopelessly perplexed
and discouraged.
“Two and two,” said Royal, “are how many?”
“Three,” said Lucy.
“No,” said Royal; “four; and one are how many?”
“One is one,” said Lucy.
“No,” said Royal; “one makes five.”
“One makes five?” repeated Lucy, in a tone of surprise.
“Yes,” said Royal, “one and four make five.”
“O, you did not say one and four,” replied Lucy; “you said one.”
“No,” replied Royal, “one and four; you see we got four by adding two
and two. Here they are.”
So saying, Royal pointed to the figures which he had been adding.
Lucy did not know a _two_ from a _three_ very well; so she put her head
down close to the slate, and said, in a gentle, timid voice,--
“Is that a two?”
“Yes,” said Royal. “Let us see; where were we? We added up to three,
didn’t we? and it made six, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy, shaking her head.
“Yes, it was six; and two more make how many?”
“Five?” asked Lucy, timidly.
“No indeed,” said Royal; “why, Lucy, you don’t know how to count.”
“Yes I do,” said Lucy.
“No you don’t,” said Royal; “you don’t know how to count, I verily
believe.”
“Yes I do,” said Lucy.
“Well, let’s hear you count: come, begin.”
“One, two, three, four,” said Lucy, and so far she went on very well;
but then she began to hesitate,--“four--five--nine--seven.”
Royal burst into a fit of laughter. “You don’t how to count, Lucy,”
said he; “and how do you think I can teach arithmetic to a girl that
don’t know how to count?”
“Well, then, give me my slate,” said Lucy, “and I’ll go away.” So
she took her slate, and went away out of the room, disappointed,
discouraged, and sad.
As soon as she had gone, Royal’s feelings began to change from those of
ridicule to a sentiment of pity. He sat upon the sofa silently musing,
when Miss Anne terminated the pause by saying,--
“I was surprised at such ignorance.”
“So was I,” said Royal. “I should have thought any body would have
known that.”
“I should have thought so, certainly,” said Miss Anne.
“Any body five years old,” added Royal.
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “and yet you are ten.”
“_I?_” said Royal; “yes, I am ten, but Lucy is only five.”
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne, “but I was not speaking of Lucy; I was
speaking of you.”
“I thought,” rejoined Royal, “that you were speaking of the ignorance
Lucy showed, in not knowing how to count.”
“O no,” said Miss Anne, “I was speaking of the ignorance you showed.”
“My ignorance,” said Royal, surprised. “I am sure I added it right.”
“I think it very likely you added it right,” said Miss Anne; “it was
your ignorance of human nature, I was speaking of, not your ignorance
of arithmetic.”
“Of human nature?” repeated Royal.
“Yes; to think that you could teach Lucy arithmetic in that way.”
“Why, I thought that that was the way,” said Royal.
“No,” said Miss Anne, “you began at the end, instead of at the
beginning.”
“How?” said Royal.
“Why, you undertook to teach her to add certain sums, and you took such
sums, as difficult as it was possible to make, and got out of humor
with her because she could not do them at once.”
“O Miss Anne, they were not as difficult as could be made.”
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne, “they were, I presume, as difficult sums
as you could make, without having any carrying. In fact, the first
attempts which you made to set sums, you got the figures so many, and
of so high value, that you couldn’t add them without carrying; so you
reduced them by little and little, until you just got the figures
barely small enough to make the amount less than ten; and thus you made
the sums as difficult as they could be made, without carrying; and this
you gave her for her first lesson. The thing which you were to come to
in the end, you took as the beginning.
“Then, besides this, I think you were unreasonable in being
dissatisfied with her. When your mother promised you a paint-box, if
you would teach her to add such sums, was it reasonable to expect that
she could know how to do it already?”
“Why--no,” said Royal, hesitatingly.
“And yet you did expect it. You were employed to go over a process
with her, which would _end_ in her knowing how to do a certain thing;
and then you were vexed and out of humor with her, for not knowing how
to do the thing at the outset, before you had gone over the process at
all.”
“Why, I wasn’t out of humor, Miss Anne,” said Royal.
“I thought you were,” replied Miss Anne; “at any rate, you spoke
unkindly to her, and wounded her feelings.”
Here there was a pause. Royal was really sorry for what he had done. He
saw very clearly the unreasonableness and folly of it. But he did not
know exactly what to do.
“Well, Miss Anne,” said he at length, “how should you have managed it?”
“I,” replied Miss Anne, “should have begun at the beginning, instead of
at the end.”
“And how would you have begun at the beginning?”
“Why, I should have first ascertained exactly where Lucy was, in her
knowledge of figures, and then I should have gone to her there, and led
her along by plain and easy steps to where I wanted her to go. You must
know that teaching is a kind of ladder-making.”
“Ladder-making?” repeated Royal.
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne; “that is, it consists in preparing a
succession of steps for the pupil to mount by, and the success of it
depends upon beginning upon the ground, or wherever the pupil is, and
then having the steps so near together, that she can ascend from one to
the other, and so get up. Now, you did not even stop to inquire where
Lucy was in her knowledge, much less to make any ladder for her; but
you remained upon the top of the house, and tried to drag her up by
main force.”
Royal laughed at Miss Anne’s singular metaphor.
“Now, I should have thought,” continued Miss Anne, “that the first
thing would have been, to teach Lucy the figures, at least as many of
them as you are going to use in the sums. This alone will take several
lessons. Then I should set her some very small sums, with only _ones_
in them, and let her add those. Then I should set some more sums, and
put in a _two_ here and there, and let her practise a day or two upon
those. Then I should put one or two _threes_ into her sums, and have
the rest _ones_. After that I should put _threes_ and _twos_ both in;
and thus, after a time, she would get so as to add such sums as you set
her just now.”
“All that would take a great while,” said Royal.
“Yes,” replied Miss Anne; “teaching is slow work; but then it would
not take so long as it would to make a paint-box.”
“No,” replied Royal, “it would not.”
“I suppose you expected that you could sit down and earn your paint-box
in half an hour, and by one single lesson.”
“Why not exactly in one lesson,” said Royal.
“In one or two then,” said Miss Anne; “whereas you ought to calculate
that it will take twenty.”
Royal said no more upon the subject at this time; but he determined to
try the plan which Miss Anne had recommended.