Pshaw! Now we must have arithmetic. There stood Mr. Holmesland at the door.
“Mental arithmetic! Mental arithmetic!” shouted the class. “Let us have mental arithmetic.”
Mr. Holmesland is a stout man with sleepy-looking eyes and a reddish beard. He said never a word, but walked up to his desk and sat down with his hand under his cheek as usual.
“Written arithmetic,” he said emphatically when he was well settled.
“Oh, no, Mr. Holmesland! Mental arithmetic, mental——”
“When I was outside the door,” said Mr. Holmesland, “I thought that we should have mental arithmetic to-day, but since you shouted and screamed so, I decided that you should not have it.”
A grumbling murmur came from all the desks.
“Written arithmetic,” said Mr. Holmesland again. His water-blue eyes looked as if they would shut any minute.
As far as I am concerned, it is absolutely the same whether it is mental or written arithmetic, for I am equally poor in both.
Isn’t it remarkable that I cannot do anything with numbers? Just think, I believe it would be perfectly impossible for me to do a “rule of three” example correctly! How I shall manage when I come to higher mathematics I can’t imagine, especially if we have Mr. Holmesland. He only looks heavily down at you and lets it go, and one can’t learn a great deal that way. At any rate I can’t, I’m sure of that. But the most elaborate and difficult problems in arithmetic are just “rat for cat” to Anna Brynildsen. She gets every one correct to the last dot. That’s the kind of head she has.