THE JINGLE-LESSON.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 5, 30 January 1892, Page 119

THE JINGLE-LESSON.

Kitty sat out under the sweet apple-tree in the golden autumn noontime, crying real salt tears into her Primary Arithmetic.

‘ Now what’s the matter, Kittyleen ?’ asked big brother Tom, coming out with his Greek Grammar under his arm. ‘ I supposed you were eating sweet apples and studying, and I came out to do so, too, and here you are crying.’ , ‘ It’s — this — dreadful — multiplication table !’ sobbed Kitty. ‘ I can’t never learn it, never 1’ ‘ Hard?’ asked Tom.

‘ Oh, it s awful ! Harder than anything in your college books, I know. It’s the eights this afternoon, and 1 can't learn ’em anyhow.’ ‘ Don’t you know how much eight times one is?’ asked Tom, picking up a sweet apple and beginning to eat it.

‘ Yes, of course. Eight times one is eight. 1 can say up to five times eight all right.’ ‘Can you? Well that's encouraging, I’m sure. Let’s hear you.’ Kitty rattled it off like a book, * Five times eight is forty ’—and there she stopped. ‘ Oh, go right on !’ said Tom. ‘ Six times eight is fortyeight.’ ‘ I can’t,' said Kitty. ‘ I can't learn the rest. I’ve tried and tried, and it's no use.’ ‘Do you learn so hard?’ asked Tom. ‘ Now hear this, and then repeat it after me as well as you can : " When I go out io promenade I look so tine and gay. 1 have to take a dog along To keep the girls away." ’ Kitty laughed, and repeated the nonsense word for word. ‘ Why, yon can learn !' ‘ But that has a jingle to it. It isn't like the dry multi-plication-table. ’ ‘ Let’s put a jingle into that, then. * Six times eight was always late. Hurried up. and was forty-eight. Seven times eight was cross as two sticks. Had a nap and was fifty-six : Eight times eight fell on to the floor. I picked it up and 'twas sixty-four ; Nine times eight it wouldn't do, I turned it over ami twas seventy-two. ‘Did you make that all up now ?' asked Kitty, in wonderment. ‘ Why, yes,’ laughed Tom. ‘ Oh, it’s splendid ! Let’s see, how is it ?’ ami she went straight through it with very little help. ‘ Ten times eight is eighty. That one’s easy enough to remember. ’ ‘ And now,’ said Tom, when she had the jingle well learned, ‘ say the table aloud and the jingle in your mind as you go along.’ Kitty tried that, and a very few times made it a success. With the ringing of the first bell she was ready to start for school with those ‘ dreadful eights ’ all perfect. ‘ You’re the best Tom in the whole world !’ she said, with a good-bye kiss. ‘ And I don’t believe there’s another boy in college that could make such nice poetry.’ Tom laughed as he opened his < (reek Grammar.