She came forward with Ralph and Ellen again,
very low in her mind. She hated arithmetic with all her might, and she
really didn't understand a thing about it! By long experience she had
learned to read her teachers' faces very accurately, and she guessed by
their expression whether the answer she gave was the right one. And that
was the only way she could tell. You never heard of any other child who
did that, did you?
They had mental arithmetic, of course (Elizabeth Ann thought it just her
luck!), and of course it was those hateful eights and sevens, and of
course right away poor Betsy got the one she hated most, 7x8. She never
knew that one! She said dispiritedly that it was 54, remembering vaguely
that it was somewhere in the fifties. Ralph burst out scornfully, "56!"
and the teacher, as if she wanted to take him down for showing off,
pounced on him with 9 x 8. He answered, without drawing breath, 72.
Elizabeth Ann shuddered at his accuracy. Ellen, too, rose to the
occasion when she got 6 x 7, which Elizabeth Ann could sometimes
remember and sometimes not. And then, oh horrors! It was her turn again!
Her turn had never before come more than twice during a mental
arithmetic lesson. She was so startled by the swiftness with which the
question went around that she balked on 6 x 6, which she knew perfectly.
And before she could recover Ralph had answered and had rattled out a
108 in answer to 9 x 12; and then Ellen slapped down an 84 on top of 7 x
12.
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