|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 21
Elizabeth Ann's head whirled with this second light-handed juggling with
the sacred distinction between the grades. In the big brick schoolhouse
nobody EVER went into another grade except at the beginning of a new
year, after you'd passed a lot of examinations. She had not known that
anybody could do anything else. The idea that everybody took a year to a
grade, no MATTER what! was so fixed in her mind that she felt as though
the teacher had said: "How would you like to stop being nine years old
and be twelve instead! And don't you think Molly would better be eight
instead of six?"
However, just then her class in arithmetic was called, so that she had
no more time to be puzzled. She came forward with Ralph and Ellen again,
very low in her mind. She hated arithmetic with all her might, and she
really didn't understand a thing about it! By long experience she had
learned to read her teachers' faces very accurately, and she guessed by
their expression whether the answer she gave was the right one. And that
was the only way she could tell. You never heard of any other child who
did that, did you?
They had mental arithmetic, of course (Elizabeth Ann thought it just her
luck!), and of course it was those hateful eights and sevens, and of
course right away poor Betsy got the one she hated most, 7x8. She never
knew that one! She said dispiritedly that it was 54, remembering vaguely
that it was somewhere in the fifties. Ralph burst out scornfully, "56!"
and the teacher, as if she wanted to take him down for showing off,
pounced on him with 9 x 8. He answered, without drawing breath, 72.
Elizabeth Ann shuddered at his accuracy. Ellen, too, rose to the
occasion when she got 6 x 7, which Elizabeth Ann could sometimes
remember and sometimes not. And then, oh horrors! It was her turn again!
Her turn had never before come more than twice during a mental
arithmetic lesson. She was so startled by the swiftness with which the
question went around that she balked on 6 x 6, which she knew perfectly.
And before she could recover Ralph had answered and had rattled out a
108 in answer to 9 x 12; and then Ellen slapped down an 84 on top of 7 x
12. Good gracious! Who could have guessed, from the way they read, they
could do their tables like this! She herself missed on 7 x 7 and was
ready to cry. After this the teacher didn't call on her at all, but
showered questions down on the other two, who sent the answers back with
sickening speed.
After the lesson the teacher said, smiling, "Well, Betsy, you were right
about your arithmetic. I guess you'd better recite with Eliza for a
while. She's doing second-grade work. I shouldn't be surprised if, after
a good review with her, you'd be able to go on with the third-grade
work."
Elizabeth Ann fell back on the bench with her mouth open. She felt
really dizzy. What crazy things the teacher said! She felt as though she
was being pulled limb from limb.
"What's the matter?" asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered fact.
"Why--why," said Elizabeth Ann, "I don't know what I am at all. If I'm
second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade
spelling, what grade AM I?"
The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. "YOU aren't any grade at
all, no matter where you are in school. You're just yourself, aren't
you? What difference does it make what grade you're in! And what's the
use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you
don't know your multiplication table?"
"Well, for goodness' SAKES!" ejaculated Elizabeth Ann, feeling very much
as though somebody had stood her suddenly on her head.
"Why, what's the matter?" asked the teacher again.
This time Elizabeth Ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know
what the matter was. But I do, and I'll tell you. The matter was that
never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always
thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was
ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there
to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so
she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course,
she didn't really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she
had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the
way you do when you're learning to skate and somebody pulls away the
chair you've been leaning on and says, "Now, go it alone!"
The teacher waited a minute, and then, when Elizabeth Ann didn't say
anything more, she rang a little bell. "Recess time," she said, and as
the children marched out and began putting on their wraps she followed
them into the cloak-room, pulled on a warm, red cap and a red sweater,
and ran outdoors herself. "Who's on my side!" she called, and the
children came darting out after her. Elizabeth Ann had dreaded the first
recess time with the strange children, but she had no time to feel shy,
for in a twinkling she was on one end of a long rope with a lot of her
schoolmates, pulling with all her might against the teacher and two of
the big boys. Nobody had looked at her curiously, nobody had said
anything to her beyond a loud, "Come on, Betsy!" from Ralph, who was at
the head on their side.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|