Cousin Lucy at Study

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.

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.

CHAPTER II.
A WAGON RIDE.

The next day, after Royal had finished his own studies, he wanted Lucy to come and learn arithmetic. But Lucy did not like to come. She wanted to play just then, and, besides, although she did not recall to mind, very distinctly, the manner in which Royal had attempted to teach her the evening before, yet the occurrence left an unpleasant impression upon her mind, and she was not disposed to put herself under his instructions again.

“But, then,” said Royal, “you can’t have a paint-box.”

“Well,” said Lucy, “I don’t care much.”

After a little pause, while Royal was thinking what other inducement he could offer, he said,—

“Well, Lucy, if you will study a lesson in arithmetic, I will give you a good ride.”

He meant that he would give her a ride in a little wagon, which was bought for Lucy when she was too young to walk, and which had been kept with so much care that it was still a very good wagon. Royal used sometimes to draw Lucy in this wagon, and she liked to ride in it very much.

“Well,” said Lucy, “how far will you give me a ride?”

“O, I will give you a good long ride,” said Royal. “I will draw you away over to Rollo’s.”

Lucy’s cousin Rollo, who was at this time a very small boy, lived at not a great distance, and Royal and Lucy sometimes went over to play with him. So they made the agreement, that Royal was to draw Lucy over to Rollo’s and Lucy was to learn a lesson in arithmetic. But then there immediately arose a difficulty in determining which should take place first, the ride or the lesson: Royal wanted to have the lesson then, and the ride some other time; but Lucy wanted to make sure of the ride, and so postpone the lesson.

“Why, the rule is, Lucy,” said Royal, “always to pay when the work is done. I’ll pay you for the lesson when you have studied it.”

“No,” said Lucy, “the ride is the work. I’ll pay you for the ride when I have had it.”

Royal thought that the lesson ought to be considered the work, and the ride the pay; but he couldn’t think of any good reason to offer for this opinion, and he therefore, after some hesitation, came to Lucy’s terms. They brought out Lucy’s wagon, and, after obtaining permission of their mother, he helped Lucy into it, and then, he acting the part of horse, and Lucy that of driver, they went over to their cousin Rollo’s.

They went into a yard where there was a gravel walk, which led them around behind the house. Here they found Rollo sitting upon a bench near the door, trying to read in a picture-book. He had not learned to read much yet. The door was open, and there were a couple of bars across the door-way, pretty low down; and behind them was a little child, not old enough to walk, who was kept from falling out into the yard by the bars. This was Rollo’s little brother Nathan.

By the time that Royal had arrived at Rollo’s house, he had become quite interested in drawing Lucy in the wagon, and had forgotten his desire to teach her a lesson in arithmetic. So he said,—

“Lucy, if Rollo will go with us, I’ll draw you farther. Come, Rollo,” said he, “come and play travel with us. I’ll pull, and you push behind.”

“No,” said Rollo, “I can’t go; I must stay and take care of Nathan.”

Royal and Lucy looked at Nathan. He was standing behind his bars, striking the upper one with a stick, evidently pleased with the rattling, but paying no attention to the discussion which was going on among the other children.

“Let Nathan go with us,” said Royal.

“No,” said Rollo, shaking his head; “I don’t think my mother will let him.”

“Yes she will,” said Royal; “Lucy will get out, and let him get into the wagon, and then you and Lucy shall be the horses, and I will be the driver.”

Rollo still thought that his mother would not be willing to let Nathan go. However, he said that he would go and ask her.

Rollo’s mother came out, and said,—

“Well, Royal, I hardly know what to say to your plan. Do you think you can take good care of Nathan?”

“O yes, aunt,” said Royal; “we will be very careful indeed.”

After some hesitation, Nathan’s mother consented to let them go. She said that she should put Nathan under Royal’s special charge. So she put a sort of a cloak upon his shoulders, and a cap upon his head, and put him into the wagon. Lucy and Rollo then took hold of the tongue of the wagon, to draw, while Royal pushed behind; and so they sallied forth from the yard, Rollo’s mother standing at the door, to watch them as they went along. Just as they passed around the corner of the house, she gave them her last charges; which were to keep in the smooth road, and to be very careful about turning.

The children, promising to obey these instructions, passed on around the corner, and turned into the road.

They went on for some distance, without any difficulty or trouble. At last, they came to a place where a road branched off from the main road, and led into the woods. They turned into this road, for Royal said that it led to a place where they could get some flowers. Both Rollo and Lucy said they should like this very much, for they wanted to have some flowers. Rollo said that he was going to study botany; his mother was going to teach him.

“I wish I could study botany,” said Lucy; “I should like botany a great deal better than arithmetic.”

“Well,” said Royal, “I can teach you.”

“O Royal,” said Lucy, “you don’t know how to study botany.”

“Yes, I do,” said Royal. “The first thing is to study the leaves; you must gather all the different kinds of leaves you can find, and press them in a book.”

“What good does that do?” said Lucy.

“O, then you know how many different shapes of leaves there are,” he replied.

Rollo had put his picture-book into the wagon, just before they had set out from the house, thinking that perhaps they might stop at some place, where he would want to look at it. So he asked Royal if his picture-book would do to put the leaves into, and Royal said it would do very well. And they all determined that, after they had gone a little farther, they would stop and get some leaves by the side of the road.

They were now in a sort of by-road, leading through the woods; but presently they came to a kind of cart path, which turned out to one side, and seemed to lead to places still more solitary than where they were. Royal wanted to turn off into this cart path.

“It will be a beautiful place to study botany, in there,” said he.

“No,” said Rollo, “we must not go in there; for mother said that we must keep in smooth roads.”

“Well,” replied Royal, “that is a smooth road. It is just as smooth as this.”

Royal and Lucy looked in. The road was indeed smooth, but then it was narrow, and Rollo did not know into what difficulties it might lead them. He was quite reluctant to go in. But Royal assured him that there was no danger; and he said, also, that, if they should find any rough places after they had got in some way, they could easily turn around and come out.

So Rollo consented, and they turned off into the cart path.

After they had gone in for some distance, Royal said that they had got to a good place to collect leaves. So Lucy and Rollo put the tongue of the wagon down in the road, and went to the banks on each side, and began to gather the leaves from the various wild plants which were growing there. These leaves were of all shapes: some were long and pointed, others oval, others nearly round; some were shaped like a heart, some notched along the edges like a saw, and one which Royal got down from an oak-tree, Lucy said, wasn’t shaped like any thing at all.

While they were collecting these leaves, Lucy suddenly called out to Rollo, who was upon the side of the road with her,—

“O Rollo, Rollo, come here! here is a little squirrel! come and see him.”—

“Where? where?” said Rollo, running towards the place; “let me see; let me see.”

Royal, hearing this call, immediately dropped a large collection of leaves and flowers, which he had gathered, and ran across the road. When he first got sight of the squirrel, he was standing upon his hind legs on the end of a half-decayed log, holding a nut between his fore paws, which he nibbled a little from time to time, keeping, however, a sharp lookout upon the children all the while.

“I’ll catch him in my cap,” said he.

In the mean time, little Nathan, who had been left in his wagon in the path-way, and who was yet too young to appreciate the pleasure and the utility of making botanical collections, began to make a sort of murmuring sound, which indicated restlessness and discontent.

“Yes, Nathan,” said Rollo, calling out to him, “we’ll come in a minute.”

Royal crept up softly towards the squirrel, with his cap in the air, ready to make him prisoner. Rollo and Lucy looked on with great interest, while Nathan, who had not yet learned to place much confidence in promises, seemed still more uneasy. The squirrel stuffed the remains of his nut into his cheek, leaped off the log, and ran along upon the ground.

“You go and take care of Nathan,” said Royal, “and I’ll run and catch the squirrel. You can go and help him, Lucy.”

“But we want to see you catch the squirrel,” said Lucy.

“O, never mind that,” said Royal, looking back towards them, and speaking in a hurried manner, as he crept along after the squirrel; “I shall have to chase him ever so far, and you can’t keep up; but you shall have a share in him just the same, when I catch him. So run back and take care of Nathan.”

Thus urged, the two children went back to the road, while Royal went on in pursuit of the squirrel. Lucy and Rollo showed Nathan their leaves and flowers, and gave him a large lily to pull to pieces. By these means they had just succeeded in getting him quiet and amused, when Rollo saw a cow walking slowly along the path, towards the place where they and the wagon were standing. This threw the children into a state of great alarm; for, although the cow was really innocent of any bad design, the children thought they saw in her countenance a very determined and threatening expression. They thought she was coming to bite them, or at least that she would certainly run over Nathan.

Rollo’s first design was, to look around for a stick, and drive her away, which, on the whole, would have been the most judicious plan. But Lucy, being a girl, was naturally more inclined to retreat than to give battle; and she called upon Rollo to help her draw the wagon out of the road, so as to give the cow the opportunity to get by. They accordingly took hold of the tongue of the wagon, and, turning it short round, began to pull hard upon it, to get their little charge out of the danger.

In their eagerness and trepidation, however, they turned the tongue too short about, so as to lock one of the fore wheels under the wagon, and then, as very often happens under such circumstances, by the violence of their effort the wagon was upset; and Nathan, the fragments of the lily, the picture-book, and the cushion on which Nathan had been seated, all rolled out together upon the ground. The cow paid no attention whatever to their terror and distress, but walked by very deliberately on the other side.

“She walked by very deliberately on the other side.”—Page 33

Nathan was not hurt. He looked a little wild when they took him up, and even began to cry a little; but Lucy soon hushed him, sitting down upon the bank, and holding him in her lap, while Rollo set the wagon up again, and replaced the things which had been thrown out. Then, while Lucy continued to amuse Nathan, Rollo went to see if he could find Royal.

After going on for some distance, he found him returning slowly, with his cap upon his head, and a strange-looking thing in his hand.

“Have you caught him?” said Rollo.

“Caught what?” said Royal.

“The squirrel,” replied Rollo.

“O—no,” said Royal, “but I have got a most curious-looking thing here.”

“What is it?” said Rollo.

“A kind of a fungus,” replied Royal. “I found it growing on a tree.”

Royal showed Rollo the fungus, and he thought it was a very curious thing indeed. Then Rollo told him the story of the accident which had happened in the cart path. Royal was somewhat alarmed at this, and he hastened to the place. He felt somewhat condemned for having gone away and left his charge in the hands of such guardians as Rollo and Lucy, and so he very assiduously helped them replace Nathan in his wagon, and turn it round. The leaves which they had collected were all scattered upon the ground; even those which had been put into the picture-book had fallen out when the wagon had been upset; so that, when the children had got nearly home, they recollected that they had left their whole botanical collection behind them. And this was the end of Lucy’s attempts to pursue the study of botany, for several years.

CHAPTER III.
THE MAGAZINE.

Neither Royal nor Lucy thought any thing more of their arithmetic for several days. Lucy’s slate got put up upon a shelf in the closet, and was entirely forgotten. One day, however, when Rollo and Lucy were walking in a little lane by the side of the garden, they found a beautiful flower, growing near a large, flat stone.

“O, what a beautiful blue flower!” said Lucy.

“Yes,” said Royal; “give it to me.”

“No,” said Lucy, “I want to carry it home to my mother.”

“O, mother won’t care about it,” said Royal; “give it to me, and I will press it in a book.”

“No,” said Lucy.

“And then,” continued Royal, “we can draw a copy of it, and paint it.”

“We haven’t got our paint-box yet,” said Lucy.

“No, we haven’t,” said Royal. “And that’s because I haven’t finished teaching you arithmetic. Come, let us go and take a lesson now.”

Lucy, however, was not much inclined to take her lesson. After some conversation, however, Royal, finding that Lucy had no inclination to study arithmetic at all, and reflecting that this aversion was his own fault, concluded that he must win her back again to the work by dexterous management.

So he said,—

“Well, Lucy, I’ll tell you what we will do. We’ll carry this blue flower to the house, and I’ll make a drawing of it upon your slate.”

“So we will,” said Lucy. In fact, she was very much pleased with this plan; and the two children set off accordingly for the house, to make the drawing. After some search, they found the slate, but the pencil was gone. Royal, however, had a pencil of his own, in a little box, which he kept under a sky-light in the garret, and he and Lucy went up into the garret in pursuit of it.

This box, or chest,—for it was properly a small chest,—was the place where Royal kept a considerable number of his old playthings, especially such as were somewhat out of use. He called it his magazine. His father had told him that a magazine was a place where people kept things in store; and so he thought that magazine would be a good name for this depository of his.

Royal lifted up the lid of his magazine, and there, among a great number of other things, there was a small pasteboard box, without a cover. In this box were several slate and lead pencils, wafers, and pieces of India rubber; also the handle of a knife, and one half of a pair of scissors. Royal called it his scissor. He said he meant one day to grind the blade down to an edge, and then it would make a good knife, which he meant to call his scissor-knife. Lucy wanted to look at it, and at a great many other curious things, which she saw in the magazine; but Royal said no, and, putting down the lid of the chest, after he had taken out the pencil, he sat down upon it, and asked Lucy to sit down by his side.

He immediately began, according to his promise, to draw Lucy the picture of the flower. First he made the stem, then a little root at the bottom of it, then a few long, slender leaves growing out around the stalk, and finally the flower.

The flower was the most difficult part; but Royal succeeded in representing it to Lucy’s entire satisfaction; and, when he had finished it, he said,—

“Now, Lucy, that we are here, you’d better let me teach you one of the figures. I’ll just teach you the figure one; that’s very easy. It’s nothing but a mark.”

So Royal made a mark upon the slate for the figure one, and then put the pencil into Lucy’s hands, that she might attempt to imitate it. Lucy made a mark as nearly as she could like Royal’s, only it was a great deal too long.

“That’s very well, Lucy,” said Royal, “very well indeed for the first, only it isn’t necessary to make it quite so long. You must make the next one shorter.”

Lucy accordingly made another; and she stopped sooner than she had done before, so as to make the mark shorter than she had done at first. Royal said it was a very good one indeed. Lucy, finding that Royal, instead of upbraiding or ridiculing her, was pleased and satisfied with her attempts, began to feel gratified herself; and she said that she should like much to make some more ones; and Royal accordingly told her to make a row of them quite across the slate near the top. She made them, on the whole, very well, though some of them were crooked.

“It is very hard to make straight letters,” said she.

“Straight figures, you mean,” said Royal.

“Yes,” said Lucy, “straight figures. Crooked figures are much easier to make. I can make a three. I’m going to make a three.”

“No,” said Royal, “two comes next.”

“I don’t care,” said Lucy; “I can’t make a two, but I can make a three, and so I am going to make that next.”

“No,” said Royal, “you mustn’t make a three next; that is out of order. Besides, I am your teacher, and you must mind me.”

“No,” said Lucy, “I am going to make what I choose.”

Royal and Lucy were both wrong in this discussion.

Lucy was wrong, for the last of the reasons which Royal assigned, namely, that he was her teacher, and therefore she ought to have obeyed him. The first of Royal’s reasons, however, was not valid,—namely, that, because two comes before three in numeration, therefore it ought to be made first. The successive steps of a study ought to be taken in their natural order, when one depends upon another. For instance, a child ought to learn how to subtract before undertaking to learn how to divide, for division depends upon subtraction. You cannot well divide without subtracting. But in merely learning the forms of the figures, there is no dependence of one upon the other, and therefore they may be taught in any order which the teacher thinks best.

Therefore, if Royal, who was the teacher, had thought it best to have taught Lucy to make the figure nine, or eight, or the cipher, next to one, because he supposed that those characters would be more easy for Lucy to form, it would not have been at all improper; and therefore his argument, that two ought to be made next to one, simply because it comes next to it as a number, was not a valid argument. But his second reason was valid; for it is always the duty of a pupil to follow the directions of the teacher, whether the pupil approves of the directions or not.

But, then, although Lucy did very wrong in resisting and disobeying the will of her teacher, Royal himself acted very unwisely, in being so strenuous in requiring a compliance with it. His whole hope of success in his efforts to teach his sister, and so to gain the paint-box, depended necessarily upon keeping on good terms with her, and making her willing to follow his instructions. If Miss Anne had been in Royal’s place, she would not have had any contention with her upon the subject. She would have allowed her to make the three next, and then, after the lesson was over, she would have said, perhaps,—

“Now, Lucy, you have been a pretty good scholar. You have obeyed my directions very well generally, and I am therefore going to let you see the things in my magazine. Only there was one time that you didn’t obey me. When I wanted you to make twos, you would make threes, and so I can’t let you see all the things in my magazine. There are some little pictures in a pocket-book, which I cannot let you see; but the next time you study, if you obey me perfectly, then I will let you see the pictures in my pocket-book.”

Or, if Miss Anne had thought that this would have made Lucy cry, and so have been the cause of making disturbance in the family, then she would have had some slighter punishment, just enough not to make her cry. She did so once, when Lucy was younger and more ready to cry. She was taking a walk with her, and Lucy did not come back quick when she called her away from the shore of a brook. Accordingly, when they were going home, and Lucy asked Miss Anne to tell her a story, Miss Anne said,—

“A short or a long one?”

“O, a long one,” said Lucy.

“Well,” replied Miss Anne, “I will tell you a pretty long one, because you have obeyed me pretty well while we have been walking; but I cannot tell you a very long one, because you did not obey me all the time.” By always doing something like this, Miss Anne soon succeeded in making Lucy disposed to obey her at all times.

Royal, however, by his opposition to Lucy’s desire, only disturbed and ruffled her mind, and made her less inclined to comply with his wishes on the next occasion which might occur. And, in fact, another occasion came very soon.

For it happened that Lucy, in making her figure three, reversed the form of it, so as to have the open part come to the right, instead of to the left, as it ought to do. Children very often make this mistake, when they first attempt to form the figure three. Royal, seeing the figure which she made, began immediately to laugh at it. This disturbed Lucy’s mind more than what had taken place before. She looked up to Royal as if wondering what he was laughing at, and said,—

“You needn’t laugh, Royal; that is a three.”

“No, it isn’t a three,” said Royal.

“I tell you it is a three,” replied Lucy. “Miss Anne showed me how to make it one day.”

“O Lucy,” said Royal, “Miss Anne never made such a three as that in her life. That is an E.”

In fact, the letter E is often made, in writing, of very much such a form as Lucy’s reversed figure assumed; but Lucy insisted that it was right, and that she meant to make a whole row of them. Royal, who now began to feel somewhat out of humor himself, lost sight entirely of the principle with which he had begun, of making amends for his former roughness by kind and dexterous management. He insisted that Lucy should let him have the pencil, and he would show her how the figure ought to be made. But she would not; she said that she knew that that way was right, and she was going to make a whole row of them.

Then Royal said that she should not have his pencil any more, for he wouldn’t have his pencil used to make such ridiculous threes as those were, which, as he said, looked like threes turned wrong side out. So Lucy gave him his pencil, and got up from the chest, and walked away down stairs. Royal remained behind, to put his pencil back into his box. Then he began to look over and rearrange the various articles which were stored in his magazine. He found the wheels and body of a small wagon, and he went to work to put them together; and he remained occupied in this work for nearly half an hour.

Before this time had expired, however, he had opportunity to reflect upon his conversation with Lucy, and he saw that he had not managed wisely. He began to feel quite sorry that he had not treated her with more tenderness and consideration. While he was in this state of mind, he suddenly began to hear footsteps upon the garret stairs. He knew at once, by the sound, that it was Lucy coming up again. When she reached the head of the stairs, he found that she had her slate in her hand.

Lucy walked along towards Royal, with a good-natured and pleasant expression of countenance, and held out the slate for him to see what was written upon it. Royal saw that there was a row of threes, all made very neatly and correctly, and with the open part turned the right way.

“Ah,” said he, “Lucy, who made them?”

“I,” replied Lucy.

“Who showed you how?” asked Royal.

“Miss Anne,” replied Lucy.

“Those are right,” said Royal. He was just ready to say, I told you you made them wrong before; but, then, he reflected that it would not be pleasant to her, for him to triumph over her, and so he only said, “Those are right.”

“And now, Lucy,” he continued, “you may see me put my wagon together, and then to-morrow you shall learn to make twos.”

That afternoon, Miss Anne questioned Royal about the lesson he had been giving Lucy, and Royal repeated to her, as nearly as he could recollect, all that took place.

“I got along a little better,” he said, when he had finished his account, “than I did the first time.”

“Yes,” replied Miss Anne, “you have learned something. You have got along just about as far in the art of teaching, as Lucy has in arithmetic. If you both persevere, you’ll learn after a time.”

CHAPTER IV.
WHERE IS ROYAL?

Lucy came one evening and climbed up into her father’s lap.

“Father,” said she, “I wish you would let me study something besides what I study now.”

“Why, what do you study now?” asked her father.

“Only reading and spelling at school, and arithmetic at home with Royal.”

“Isn’t that enough?” said her father.

“No, sir,” replied Lucy; “I want to study something else.”

“Well,” said her father, “I’ll give you something to study, and I’ll study it with you.”

“O, well,” said Lucy, much pleased.

“Let me see,” added her father, looking around the room. “What shall it be? What shall we study? I’ll tell you; we’ll study the windows.”

“O father,” said Lucy, “we can’t study the windows.”

“O, yes,” replied her father, “there is a great deal to be learned about windows. Look at one of the windows, and tell me what you observe.”

So Lucy looked at the window a moment, and then said,—

“No, father, I don’t observe any thing about the windows at all.”

“I observe several things that are peculiar.”

“What do you mean by peculiar, father?” asked Lucy.

“Why, whatever one thing has, which other things do not have, is peculiar to it. Thus roots are peculiar to plants, for other things do not have roots. Now, look at the window, and see if you find any thing peculiar in it.”

“No, sir,” said Lucy; “I think it is just like all other windows.”

“But I didn’t wish you to find any thing peculiar to this window alone, which distinguishes it from other windows, but something peculiar to all windows, which distinguish them from the other parts of a building. I notice one thing which is very peculiar.”

“What is it?” said Lucy.

“Why, they are transparent.”

“What is transparent?” asked Lucy.

“Any thing that you can see through is transparent,” said her father. “Water is transparent; glass is transparent; some ice is transparent. Now, windows are made of glass, which is transparent, for two reasons: First, in order that the light may shine in and illuminate the room, so that we can see to walk about in it, and to read, and to sew. The other reason is, that we can look out through the window, and see the scenery, and the persons pass along the street. Those are the reasons why windows are made of something transparent.

“There is also something peculiar,” said her father, “in the mode in which windows open. How do they open?”

“Right upwards,” said Lucy, making a motion with her hands, as if she was opening a window.

“And how do doors open?” asked her father.

“Right sideways,” said she.

“Now, can you think of any reason why windows should open by sliding upward, and doors by swinging out upon hinges?

“First, why shouldn’t windows open like doors, by swinging out upon hinges?”

“Why, they might get broken by the wind,” said Lucy.

“Yes,” said her father; “doors are very often shut violently by the wind; and this would doubtless often happen to windows, if they were hung in a similar manner.”

“Once I saw a house,” said Lucy, “where the window was broken, and the people had put a piece of board in the place of the glass.”

“Yes,” said her father, “perhaps they had no more glass. But there is another reason why windows shouldn’t open like doors. Can you think what it is?”

“No,” said Lucy, “I can’t think.”

“If windows opened upon hinges, like doors, they must either open outward into the open air, or inward towards the room. If they were made to open outward, then, when they were wide open, they would swing back against the side of the house, and it would be very inconvenient to reach them to shut them.”

“We could go out of doors,” said Lucy.

“Yes,” replied her father, “but that would be very inconvenient, especially if there came up a sudden shower of rain, and we wished to shut the windows quick.

“But, on the other hand,” continued her father, “if the windows were made to open inwards, then they would be apt to knock the things over on the table. We often have a table before a window, but we never have a table before a door; for it would be in the way when we wanted to pass in and out. So you see the reasons, why it is better that windows should be made to slide up and down, and doors to open upon hinges.”

“But, father,” said Lucy, “why couldn’t doors be made to slide up and down like windows?”

“Think of it yourself,” said her father, “and see if you can think of any difficulty.”