Forester then placed a chair
before the desk, and Marco went into the house and brought out all the
books and papers which he had, and arranged them neatly in his desk.
While he was gone, Forester took an inkstand and a sand-box out of a
closet by the side of the fire, and filled them both, and put them on
the desk. He also placed in the desk a supply of paper, in quarter
sheets. After Marco had come back, and had put in his books and
papers, Forester gave him a ruler and a lead pencil; also a slate and
half a dozen slate pencils; also a piece of sponge and a piece of
India-rubber. He gave him besides a little square phial, and sent him
to fill it with water, so that he might have water always at hand to
wet his sponge with.
"Now is that all you will want?" asked Forester.
"Why, yes, I should think so," said Marco. "If I should want any thing
else, I can ask you, you know. You are going to stay here and study
too?"
"Yes," said Forester; "but your asking me is just what I wish to
avoid. I wish to arrange it so that we shall both have our time to
ourselves, without interruption."
"But I shall have to ask you questions when I get into difficulty,"
said Marco.
"No," said Forester, "I hope not. I mean to contrive it so that you
can get out of difficulty yourself. Let me see. You will want some
pens. I will get a bunch of quills and make them up into pens for
you."
"What, a whole bunch?" said Marco.
"Yes," replied Forester. "I don't wish to have you come to me, when I
am in the midst of a law argument, to get me to make a pen."
Steel pens were very little used in those days.
While Forester was making the pens, he said,
"There are twenty-five quills in a bunch. I shall tie them up, when
they are ready, into two bunches, of about a dozen in each. These you
will put in your desk. When you want a pen, you will draw one out of
the bunches and use it. You must not stop to look them over, to choose
a good one, but you must take any one that comes first to hand,
because, if any one should not be good, the sooner you get it out and
try it, and ascertain that it is not good, the sooner you will get it
out of the way."
"Well," said Marco, "and what shall I do with the bad ones?"
"Wipe them clean, - by the way, you must have a good penwiper, - and
then put them together in a particular place in your desk. When you
have thus used one bunch, tie them up and lay the bunch on my desk to
be mended, and then you can go on using the other bunch. This will
give me opportunity to choose a convenient time to mend the first
bunch again. When I have mended them, I will tie them up and lay them
on your desk again. Thus you will always have a supply of pens, and I
shall never be interrupted to mend one. This will be a great deal more
convenient, both for you and for me."
"Only it will use up a great many more pens," replied Marco.
"No," said Forester; "not at all. We shall have more in use at one
time, it is true, but the whole bunch may last as long as if we had
only one cut at a time."
"We shall begin to study," continued Forester, "at nine o'clock, and
leave off at twelve. That will give you half an hour to run about and
play before dinner."
"And a recess?" said Marco, - "I ought to have a recess."
"Why, there's a difficulty about a recess," said Forester. "I shall
have it on my mind every day, to tell you when it is time for the
recess, and when it is time to come in."
"O no," replied Marco, "I can find out when it is time for the recess.
Let it be always at ten o'clock, and I can look at the watch."
Marco referred to a watch belonging to Forester's father, which was
kept hung up over the mantel-piece in their little study.
"I think it probable you would find out when it was time for the
recess to _begin_," said Forester, "but you would not be so
careful about the end of it. You would get engaged in play, and would
forget how the time was passing, and I should have to go out and call
you in."
"Couldn't you have a little bell?" said Marco.
"But I don't wish to have any thing of that kind to do," said
Forester, "I am going to instruct you half an hour every morning,
beginning at nine o'clock, and I want to have it all so arranged, that
after that, I shall be left entirely to myself, so that I can go
on with my studies, as well as you with yours. If we can do this
successfully, then, when noon comes, I shall feel that I have done my
morning's work well, and you and I can go off in the afternoon on all
sorts of expeditions. But if I have to spend the whole morning in
attending to you, then I must stay at home and attend to my own
studies in the afternoon."
"Well," said Marco, "I think I can find out when to come in."
"We'll try it one or two mornings, but I have no idea that you will
succeed.
