For he who scatters help and service may suffer, but the glory of the crowning will more than make up for all the pains of heroism.
XXIII
"ONE BY ONE"
The first thing we all do is to learn to count one by one.
At school when I began as a very little boy, they had an object called an "abacus." I hardly know where they got the name, but it was made of wires with beads strung on them, and it is found away back in the time of Greece and Rome.
These beads could be moved along the wires and so we learned to count, moving one bead after the other, one by one. I suppose girls and boys are not taught that way now, but we still have to learn to count one by one.
You can't multiply or divide or do any other of those lessons you all so dearly love in arithmetic until you can count.
All girls and boys love to count and add—stamps and pennies, birthdays and holidays; and nearly every little child loves to look at a calendar and number off the days. You just watch a boy with a bag of marbles or a purse of pennies, and see how often he counts them.
The love of a home is a love one by one. Your parents count their children that way. They never mix people up.
I read in some book lately the story of a man in New York State taking the census; that is, making a list of the people who live in the country. "How many children have you?" he asked. "Well, let me see," she answered, "there's Tom and Bessie and Billy and Jean and——" "Oh!" he said, impatiently, "just give me the number." "Number!" the woman said with indignation. "We've not got to numbering yet. Do you think we have run out of names?"