“Well,” said Lucy, “I will try.”
“Now,” added Mary Jay, “your first lesson shall be to make figures on your slate. I will set you a copy.”
So Mary Jay took Lucy’s slate, and, with the ruler and the slate pencil, she ruled a line along the top of it, and then made a number of figures, very neatly and carefully, for Lucy to copy. She told Lucy to take the ruler, and sit down at her desk, and rule another line, and then to make some figures exactly like the copy, and then to rule another line, and so on down the slate.
“I want to see,” said Mary Jay, “if you can keep yourself busy doing that, without saying a word to me, for half an hour. That will be going alone. When the half-hour is out, I will let you have a recess.”
Lucy tried, but she did not succeed very well. She could not rule her lines straight, and she wanted to come and show them to Mary Jay. Then, whenever she made a bad figure, she would sigh, and exclaim, “O dear me! how hard it is!” If she made a good figure, she wanted to jump up, and come and show it to Mary Jay. When the time was about half out, she was very thirsty, and she wanted Mary Jay to go out and get her a drink of water. In reply to all her questions and complaints, Mary Jay always told her to wait until the half-hour was out, and she would attend to her. Even for the drink of water, she told her that she must wait until the recess.
When the time which Mary Jay had assigned to Lucy had expired, she said to her,—
“Now, Lucy, it is time for recess. So you may leave your slate upon the desk, and go out and play a little while.”
“Well,” said Lucy, “only may I first come and show you what I have done?”
“No,” said Mary Jay, “not till after the recess.”
“Then shall I go and put my slate away first, upon my shelf?”