“Old Bunker died.”

This was bawled out by a freckled-faced boy, who reminded her of a rabbit, owing to a fashion he had of twitching his nose and keeping it in motion in some mysterious way.  Even the teacher wanted to laugh, but assuming her sternest manner she speedily restored order.

It was during the arithmetic lesson that Alice’s heart went out in pity for the youthful instructor.  The majority of the pupils were bright; but an unruly fraction, one child, refused to comprehend.

“If a family consume a barrel of flour in nine weeks, what part of a barrel will they use in one week, Matilda?”

Matilda rolled her blue eyes up to the ceiling as if to find the answer there, then studied a board in the floor for several minutes, then slowly shook her head and sat down.  A dozen hands were raised, and the teacher nodded permission to a small boy who analyzed it successfully.

“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.  If you ate a carload of watermelons in nine days, what part of a carload would you eat in one day?”

At the mention of her favorite fruit, Matilda’s eyes glistened, her features relaxed into a broader smile, and almost before the teacher had finished she had her answer ready and gave a correct analysis.  Watermelons had won.

At last the little clock that ticked away the hours on the teacher’s table pointed to the time for the noon intermission, and with a whoop and halloo almost deafening, the pupils rushed out with dinner pails and baskets to eat their luncheon in the shady woods.