A VISIT TO ARITHMETIC.
"It's a dreadful pull up this staircase!" exclaimed Lubin, as panting
and puffing he stopped half-way, his fat round face flushed with fatigue
till it looked almost the colour of a cock's comb.
"It is dreadfully tiring!" sighed Nelly, pausing a moment to take
breath.
"It is worse than the ladder of Spelling!" cried Lubin. "I vote that we
go back at once."
"Oh no, dear Lubin!" said his sister, immediately starting again on her
weary ascent--"perseverance, you know, conquers difficulties;" and as
she uttered the words, the lame girl stumbled at that step _seven times
eight_.
"You'll never succeed," observed Lubin.
"I'll try again," said the patient Nelly; and slowly but steadily she
mounted.
Her example encouraged her brother to follow.
"I say, Nelly," observed Lubin, "what a plague all this education
furnishing is! What lucky dogs those savages are who live in caves that
want no fittings, and who have never heard of Reading papers, or ladders
of Spelling, or this horrible Multiplication!"
Nelly could not help laughing.
"The very same thought was passing through my head," said she; "but I
tried to drive it away, for it seemed to be only fit for Miss Folly."
"Perhaps a cave might not be so very pleasant," rejoined Lubin. "But I
wish that some good-natured fairy could furnish these cottages of ours
with a stroke of her wand, and save us all this terrible trouble."
"It would not be so good for us, I daresay," said Nelly, stumbling again
at _nine times six_.
"And why not?" inquired her brother.
"Why," replied Nelly, as she rubbed her bruised ankle, "I think that the
trouble and pain serve to exercise our patience and perseverance, and to
make us more fit to meet the trials which are sure to come when we are
older. Besides," she added, still mounting as she spoke, "we take more
pleasure in that which has cost us trouble than in that which we get
with ease; and it is real enjoyment to feel that a difficulty has been
overcome."
"I'm sure that we can have no pleasure from this Multiplication stair."
"Oh yes, when we get to the top!" cried Nelly, who had just reached the
pleasant tenth flight, and now went along it hand in hand with her
brother at a pace that was almost rapid.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Lubin, not long after, as he stood panting on
the topmost step.
"Oh, what a charming view!" exclaimed Nelly. "I'm so glad that we
persevered!"
"It's a tremendous big place, this town of Education," said Lubin,
looking down from his height. "I don't like the look of all those
Ologies. I'm afraid that a great lot of things are required for a really
well-furnished house."
"We have only to think of our grates at present," said Nelly. "Please
keep close beside me, Lubin; for I've heard that Mr. Arithmetic is a
terribly hard man, and I'm rather afraid to face him."
So again, hand in hand, the two children walked into the big shop
together, and looked in wonder, as Dick had done, at the great heaps of
goods within it.
"We won't go near that machinery part," whispered Lubin. "One of these
big thundering engines would crack my poor head like a nutshell."
"What do you want?" asked the iron-gray man, coming from behind a great
pile of coal-scuttles.
Nelly squeezed Lubin's hand to make him speak first, for she was a shy
little girl.
"We each want four sum-grates, for four little fireplaces," said
Lubin--"the very lightest that you can give us. I should like some no
bigger than my shoe."
"You're made of different metal from the young fellow whom we had here
yesterday," said Arithmetic, looking down with some scorn at the fat
little boy. "You'll never cut your fingers by meddling with problems, I
guess."
"You may answer for that," said Lubin.
Mr. Arithmetic, without further delay, produced specimens of his four
simplest kinds of sum grates, like those from which Dick had been
supplied. Lubin and Nelly soon chose Addition as their first purchase
from Arithmetic--a grate so small and so light that even the little girl
supported the burden with tolerable ease.
"You must come back to-morrow for something a little heavier," said Mr.
Arithmetic. "Addition is simple enough; but Division needs a little
greater effort of strength."
"We've done grand things to-day," exclaimed Lubin; "it's time enough to
think about to-morrow."
"Oh, I will certainly come back then!" cried Nelly, not a little pleased
at her present success.