Her idea, perhaps, was, that she could in this way combine the prosecution of her own studies, with enacting policeman over the young gardeners, and “keeping the peace,” as she called it. But if so, she was doomed to disappointment.
The operation of “tidying up gardens,” as performed by a set of “little ones,” scarcely needs description.
It consists of a number of alterations being thought of, and set about, not one of which is ever known to be finished by those who begin them. It consists of everybody wanting the rake at the same moment, and of nobody being willing to use the other tools, which they call stupid and useless things. It consists of a great many plants being moved from one place to another, when they are in full flower, and dying in consequence. (But how, except when they are in flower, can anyone judge where they will look best?) It consists of a great many seeds being prevented from coming up at all, by an “alteration” cutting into the heart of the patch just as they were bursting their shells for a sprout. It consists of an unlimited and fatal application of the cold-water cure.
And, finally, it results in such a confusion between foot-walks and beds—such a mixture of earth and gravel, and thrown-down tools—that anyone unused to the symptoms of the case, might imagine that the door of the pigsty in the yard had been left open, and that its inhabitant had been performing sundry uncouth gambols with his nose in the little ones’ gardens.
Aunt Judy was quite aware of these facts, and she had accordingly laid down several rules, and given several instructions to prevent the usual catastrophe; and all went very smoothly at first in consequence. The little ones went out all hilarity and delight, and divided the tools with considerable show of justice, while Aunt Judy nodded to them approvingly out of her window, and then settled down to an interesting sum in that most peculiar of all arithmetical rules, “The Rule of False,” the principle of which is, that out of two errors, made by yourself from two wrong guesses, you arrive at a discovery of the truth!
When Aunt Judy first caught sight of this rule, a few days before, at the end of an old summing-book, it struck her fancy at once. The principle of it was capable of a much more general application than to the “Rule of False,” and she amused herself by studying it up.
It is, no doubt, a clumsy substitute for algebra; but young folks who have not learnt algebra, will find it a very entertaining method of making out all such sums as the following old puzzler, over which Aunt Judy was now poring:
“There is a certain fish, whose head is 9 inches in length, his tail as long as his head and half of his back, and his back as long as both head and tail together. Query, the length of the fish?”
But Aunt Judy was not left long in peace with her fish. While she was in the thick of “suppositions” and “errors,” a tap came at the window.