If the city child goes through the arithmetic once, it is as much as ever. In the Old Red School-house those who hadn't gone through the arithmetic at least six times, were little thought of. In town, the last subject in the book was “Permutation,” to which you gave the mere look its essentially frivolous nature deserved. It was: “End of the line. All out!” But in the country a very important department followed. It was called “Problems.” They were twisters, able to make “How old is Ann?” look like a last year's bird's nest. They make a big fuss about the psychology of the child's mind nowadays. Well, I tell you they couldn't teach the man that got up that arithmetic a thing about the operation of the child's mind. He knew what was what. He didn't put down the answers. He knew that if he did, weak, erring human nature, tortured by suspense, determined to have the agony over, would multiply by four and divide by thirteen, and subtract 127--didn't, either. I didn't say “substract.” I guess I know they'd get the answer somehow, it didn't matter much how. In the country they ciphered through this part, and handed in their sums to Teacher, who said she'd take 'em home and look 'em over; she didn't have time just then. As if that fooled anybody! She had a key! And when you had done the very last one on the very last page, and there wasn't anything more except the blank pages, where you had written, “Joe Geiger loves Molly Meyers,” and, “If my name you wish to see, look on page 103,” and all such stuff, then you turned over to the beginning, where it says, “Arithmetic is the science of numbers, and the art of computing by them,” and once more considered, “Ann had four apples and her brother gave her two more. How many did she then have?” There were the four apples in a row, and the two apples, and you that had worried over meadows so long and so wide, and men mowing them in so many days and a half, had to think how many apples Ann really did have. Some of the fellows with forked hairs on their chins and uncertain voices--the big fellows in the back seats, where the apple-cores and the spit-balls come from knew every example in the book by heart.