I was a very difficult pupil to place, having been overeducated in some subjects and absolutely neglected in others. I might have gone with the seniors in English and History; was normal in Latin, that is, sophomore, where girls of my age were put; was just beginning French; and had to go with the kids in Mathematics. I had never played a game of tennis in my life nor even seen a game of basketball, but I was naturally athletic from the free country life I had led, and it was soon realized in athletic circles that I would be on the team with a little coaching.
I was glad to see that Miss Cox was to teach me Arithmetic. Miss Peyton hoped I could get into Algebra by Christmas and then, with hard study and earnest coaching, perhaps catch up with the class. I had a feeling that Miss Cox and I were going to pull together if she could just let herself go. Her manner in the class was rather wooden, but she was an excellent teacher and the girls were quick to recognize that, so while she was not popular, she was not disliked.
I was such a stupid in Mathematics that I was afraid she might put me down as a dunce and lose all interest in me, but the fact that I read "Alice in Wonderland" seemed to be in my favor.
"Page, I will not have you look upon yourself as hopeless in Arithmetic," she said to me one day when I despaired of ever understanding what seemed to me a very intricate problem. "Lewis Carroll was a great mathematician and still he wrote the delicious classic that you and I are so fond of. Now I think minds that appreciate the same things must be similar. I believe there is a corner of your brain that is absolutely unexplored and that corner corresponds to the great fertile area in Lewis Carroll's. All it needs in you is working, digging, cultivating to produce fruit."
"Oh, Miss Cox, how splendid of you to look at it that way! I am going to try awfully hard to work my poor, little, neglected, unused plot of brain with all my might. If I can't grow anything but green persimmons, that would be better than nothing."
"Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision are the hard things. If you look at it right, one side of Mathematics is really romantic."
Father always said the way to control me was through my imagination and Miss Cox had surely hit on my weakness. The result was that Mathematics was no longer dry-as-dust to me. I found it had been a closed book because I had never been interested enough to open it. I soon outstripped the kids in my class and was put in a higher one. I had to read frequent chapters of "Alice in Wonderland" to cheer me on, and Miss Cox used to quote Lewis Carroll to me when she and I were alone. I found the other girls in the classes looked upon her as nothing but a teacher and she regarded them as mere pupils, to be taught conscientiously and then dismissed.
One day I sailed safely through a problem that was noted as a regular stumper. As soon as the class was dismissed, Miss Cox exclaimed:
"'Come to my arms, my beamish boy. You've slain the Jabberwock.' Page, I really believe you are going to end by being a pretty good mathematician."
I answered: