"It is forty feet one way," said Frank, "and twenty-five feet the
other."
"Take your paper and pencil, Frank," said Uncle Robert, "and draw a plan
of it. You might make one inch for every ten feet, and see how that will
come out."
Frank took the paper, pencil, and ruler, and soon he said:
"It makes it four inches long and two inches and a half wide."
"But remember," said Uncle Robert, "that means forty feet long and
twenty-five feet wide."
"I'll write it down," said Frank; "then we'll remember."
So he wrote "40" on the long side and "25" on the short one.
"But we must find out how many square feet there are on the whole
surface," said Uncle Robert.
"Well," said Frank, "there are forty this way."
"So we might think of it as a row across the garden of forty square
feet, might we not?" suggested Uncle Robert.
"Yes," said Frank; "and if we do that there will be twenty-five rows
just like it, won't there?"
"Exactly," said Uncle Robert. "How many does that make in all?"
"Twenty-five forties," said Frank, pencil in hand. "Why, that's just one
thousand."
"That sounds pretty big," said Susie.
"Especially when you think of the weeds," said Uncle Robert, smiling,
"How many square inches would that be, Frank?"
"Well," said Frank, "a foot is twelve inches long, and if it is square
it is twelve inches wide, too."
"Then," said Uncle Robert, "if you call them rows of twelve square
inches, how many rows would there be?"
"Why, twelve," said Donald.
"And so it would be--"
"One hundred forty-four," said Frank.
"Then," said Uncle Robert, "if there are one hundred forty-four square
inches in one foot, how many in one thousand feet?"
"One hundred forty-four thousand," said Frank, after a moment's thought.
"But the rain-gauge says that an inch and a half of rain has fallen,"
said Uncle Robert, "and when an inch is as deep as it is long and broad,
it is called a cubic inch. How much would one and one-half cubic inches
be?"
"If this is one inch," said Frank, looking at the paper, "half an inch
deep would be half of this, and that, added to this, would be an inch
and a half. Isn't that right?"
He went to work again, and after a few minutes' silence he said:
"It makes two hundred and sixteen thousand inches in all."
"What kind of inches did we call them, Donald?"
"Cubic inches," said Donald.
"If you were to bring a pail of water from the spring," said Uncle
Robert, "would you say you had so many inches of water?"
"No," said Frank, "it would be quarts, or gallons, or something like
that."
"Do you know how much a quart or gallon is, Susie?" asked Uncle Robert.
"Mother has a quart cup in the pantry," said Susie, "that she measures
the milk in sometimes, but I don't know how much a gallon is."
"My new milk pail," said Mrs. Leonard, who sat beside the window sewing,
"holds just two gallons."
"Let's see how many quarts it takes to fill it," said Susie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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