“So I was,” said Royal; “but then she asked me herself what carrying was, and so I had to tell her.”
“No,” replied Miss Anne, “you need not have attempted to explain it to her fully. It would have been enough to have told her, that it was a difficult process in addition, which she would understand by and by.”
“Why, Miss Anne,” replied Royal, “I think it is very easy.”
“It may be easy to you, now you understand it, but difficult to her,” replied Miss Anne.
“Well,” said Royal, “then I won’t explain that to you now, Lucy. I’ll teach you what carrying is when we come to it.”
So he went to work, to set Lucy a sum, trying to make the figures of so small a value, that there should be no carrying in any column. But he did not succeed very well. He made the sums so large that, although he made all the figures ones, twos, threes, and fours, yet, in some of the columns, the amount, on adding them, would come more than ten; and of course there would be something to carry. At last, however, he succeeded; and then he began to teach Lucy how to add up.
But the work was altogether too difficult for Lucy’s powers. In the first place, she did not know the figures, and she could not remember which was two, and which was three. Lucy tried to follow him in his explanation and calculation, but she soon became hopelessly perplexed and discouraged.
“Two and two,” said Royal, “are how many?”
“Three,” said Lucy.
“No,” said Royal; “four; and one are how many?”