"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.
For a time the game of geography became so absorbing Marian played it at the table, forming snowy peaks of mashed potatoes and sprinkling salt upon the summits until the drifts were so deep, only the valleys below were fit to be eaten. Brown gravy was always the Missouri River winding its way across Marian's plate between banks of vegetables. Ice cream meant Mammoth Cave. A piece of pie was South Africa from which the Cape of Good Hope quickly disappeared. However hungry Marian might be, there was a time when she ate nothing but continents and islands.
Whatever Miss Virginia Smith tried to teach the country children, Marian Lee appropriated for herself. She listened to all recitations whether of the chart class or the big boys and girls. Perhaps if Marian had attended more strictly to her own lessons, she might have made the kind of a record she thought would please Uncle George. As it was, Jimmie Black "Left off head" in the spelling class more times than she did, the first month. Belle Newman had higher standings in arithmetic and geography, and some one carried off all the other honors.
Marian, however, knew something about botany before the end of May, and she gloried in the fact that she could name all the bones in her body. Mr. Golding was proud of her accomplishment and once when she went with him to see old Bess newly shod, he asked her to name the bones for the blacksmith: and the blacksmith thought it wonderful that a little girl knew so much. "Yes, but that's nothing," remarked the child, "all the big boys and girls in the fifth reader class know their bones."
"Ain't you in the fifth reader?" asked the blacksmith.