Scenes and Characters, or, Eighteen Months at Beechcroft

‘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.