Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/22

OF LONG AGO anyone knew how to read or write, long before the world had learned how to weave fine cloth, and long before men knew any other way to make a light than to rub two pieces of wood together until one of them was set on fire. Menes was proud of what he thought was the magnificent house in which he lived, although it was only a little hut, jand he was glad to be able to say, “We have a great many palm trees about our house,” although there were only six. For Menes had heard his father and mother speak of one tree, of two trees, of three trees, and of four trees, but beyond that they simply said “a great many trees,” for they had names for numbers only up to four, and all beyond that was a great many, just as we might speak of a great many apples.

When Ching and An-am and Menes grew to be men, and Ching became a king, and An-am became a manager of the Babylonian king’s estates, and Menes became a great captain in the wars against the savages who lived in the south, Ching could only count to two, and An-am to three, and Menes to four, because this was as far as people in