Page:How and Why Library 171.jpg

 brighter, too. We learn in doing things for ourselves; but we learn the most and the fastest when we do things for others. That's nature's way of teaching living things multiplication.

Now, notice how nature does "examples" in addition, in making plants and animals. She seems, in her counting, to be like the funny old colored man, who was set to counting sheep.

As the flock began passing through the gate, he said:

"One, two, three—dar goes anoder, dar goes anoder, dar goes anoder!"

He couldn't count above three! Nature seems to do a good deal of her counting in that way. She fits the parts of things together by ones and twos and threes. Plant and animal life begin with just one cell. The growth of a plant begins with just one shoot. Sometimes there are already two leaves on it when it comes above ground. But it always begins, either above or below ground, with a single shoot. Then come two leaves, making three parts. As it branches, each branch begins as a single shoot. It adds its leaves in the same way— in pairs, like your paired eyes and ears and nostrils, and hands and feet. After the first two leaves, come two more, making, with the shoot, five. Then two more—making seven; and so on. So the petals of most flowers are five in number. We have five senses and five fingers and five toes. The starfish eats with five fingers. Nature seems to enjoy doing things with "fives." So don't be ashamed if you still have to count on your five fingers.

Now listen to the crawfish say his addition and multiplication table:

"I have two eyes, two feelers, two claw feet. Each of these feet has two claws. I have four pairs of legs—four on each of two sides. My body is divided, as you see, into three parts. Each of these three parts is made up of seven parts; seven rings like the earthworm's, hinged together. Seven, as you see, is 1+2+2+2."

In a few members of the crawfish family, some of these seven parts have grown together. But still, even these members of the family show each of the seven rings plainly, while they are babies. There, you see, is nature's same old way of having her little ones tell the story of their grandparents. Perhaps you have read Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather." This grandfather tells the tales to the children. But in the story of the world, as we find it written in the Book of Nature, it is the children who first tell the story, if we will only look and listen very closely.