Page:Smith - Number Stories of Long ago (1919).djvu/55

NUMBER STORIES “What is the use in arguing with the Crowd?” asked the Story-Teller.

“No use at all,” answered the Crowd.

Number Stories, p34-illustration.png THE STORY-TELLER'S NOTICE AND HOW IT WAS CHANGED

But all this time the Story-Teller was just as anxious to begin as the Crowd was to listen. This, then, is the story he told:

It was a hot day, and Gupta (gōōp'tä), brown of skin and brown of dress, played under the shade of the bamboo on the banks of the Indus (ĭn'dŭs), the great stream that gives the name to India.

Gupta was glad to be out of the hot sun, glad to splash in the water with a branch of bamboo, glad to be living in that ancient land — ancient even when he played by the Indus two thousand years ago. Gupta had never been to school, for there were no 34