"Now, Matilda, you try it."
But Matilda shook her head and fidgeted with her apron string.
"Try it, and we will help you," persisted the teacher.
Thus urged, Matilda cleared her throat, folded her arms and began: "If
nine persons use a barrel of flour in nine weeks, in one week they
would use nine times nine, which is eighty-one."
"What! eighty-one barrels? But, Matilda, it makes no difference about
the number of persons. It may be one hundred or it may be twenty.
Suppose it were a bushel of potatoes they consumed in nine weeks. How
many would they use in one week?"
The girl again shook her head and resumed her upward gaze.
"Would they not use one-ninth of a bushel? Or, we'll take a peach for
instance."
Matilda's face brightened perceptibly and almost lost its look of
dejection. The teacher noted the change and smiled encouragingly as
she said:
"We'll suppose a peach will last you nine days. What part of it will
you eat in one day?"
The expectant look faded out of the poor girl's face. One peach to
last nine days! No wonder the question seemed impossible of solution.
"Well, then," said Miss Harper quite in despair and almost perspiring
in her effort to make it plain to the child, "we'll let the peach go.
Suppose instead, it were a watermelon.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132