"More than we can ever read, little girl. Better than that the country around this village is a garden of wild flowers. Down by the old mill and on the hills, in the fields and woods and along the river bank, we shall find treasures from now on every time we take the shortest walk." "Oh, dear," grumbled Marian, "isn't it too bad I've got to go to school?" "Why don't you like to go to school, child?" "At home I do, on account of recesses. I don't like the school part of it much, but here it would be recess all the time if I could go in the woods with you, besides having a good time with the Golding girls and playing all day long where I don't get scolded. Dear! I wish I didn't have to go to school, or else I wish they'd have lessons about birds and flowers and butterflies and little animals, instead of old arithmetic. I hate arithmetic." "Do you?" sympathized Miss Smith. "That's too bad, because we all need to understand arithmetic." "I don't," protested Marian. "I don't even think arithmetic thoughts." "Some day, Marian, you will wish you understood arithmetic," said Miss Smith. "Now if you and I went for a walk and we saw ten crows, three song sparrows, five bluebirds, seven chipping sparrows and twenty-seven robins, and Mrs. Golding asked us when we got home how many birds we saw, I wonder how you would feel if you couldn't add?" "Well, but don't you see," interrupted Marian, "I could add birds, yes and subtract and multiply and divide them. That's different. What I don't like is just figures and silly arithmetic things." "Well, Marian, I may as well tell you now that I'm the school-teacher and we'll have arithmetic stories about birds and flowers and little animals." "Oh, are you the teacher?" exclaimed Marian. "I thought she was--was--different, you know." "Different, how?" "Well, they told me the teacher was--was quiet." "So she is, usually," agreed Miss Smith, "but this afternoon she met one of her own folks. This little sister to the dandelion." "Won't we have fun!" was Marian's comment. CHAPTER XVI PROFESSOR LEE, BOTANIST MISS VIRGINIA SMITH knew how to teach arithmetic. Fractions lost their terror for Marian, even the mysteries of cube root were eagerly anticipated. History became more than ever a living story to the child, and geography was a never failing joy. On rainy days every stream and puddle between Mrs. Golding's home and the schoolhouse was named, and if several Mississippi Rivers emptied into Gulfs of Mexico, and if half a dozen Niles overflowed their banks over the country road, what difference did it make? When the sun shone bright and only dew-drops glistened in the shade, Marian saw deserts and plains, mountains and volcanoes along the dusty way.