“Presently,” continued Mary Jay, “the teacher took out a copy, which was all figures from the beginning of the line to the end, and handed it to Sarah.
“‘There,’ said he, ‘I am glad you told me that you can’t make figures very well, for I want to have you learn; so I’ll give you copies of figures altogether, for a while. And as for Lucy Dane, I will be careful not to give her any more copies with figures in them, if she can make figures beautifully already.’”
“Why, Mary Jay!” said Lucy. She was quite surprised at this decision of the teacher.
“Children very often,” continued Mary Jay, “make objections to do what their teacher requires, because they say they can’t do it. They forget that this is the very reason why they should set to work and learn. You don’t go to school to do over again what you can already do very well, but to learn to do things which you can’t do when you go.
“There was another girl in the same school,” continued Mary Jay; “and one day, when the teacher told us that we must write every other page in our writing books without ruling, in order that we might learn to write straight without lines to guide us, she said that she couldn’t write at all without ruling.
“‘Can’t you?’ said the teacher; ‘then you’ll have to write every page so, instead of every other, until you learn a little; and when you get so as to write tolerably straight, then it will not be necessary for you to write so much without a guide.’”
“What was her name?” said Lucy.
But Mary Jay did not have time to answer this question, for Lucy had hardly spoken the words, when her eye caught a view of quite a little sheet of water before her, under the trees. So she left Mary Jay, and ran on towards it.
It was a broad and shallow sheet of water, made by the expansion of a brook, which flowed here over smooth, yellow sands. A little below where they stood, the surface of the water was contracted, and the brook flowed over gravel and small stones, with a rapid motion, and finally fell down some rocks, making quite a little waterfall. Large trees overhung the whole scene, and made it shady and cool.
“Now,” said Mary Jay, “I will show you my seat.”