132: I had figured that . . .
Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” Chapter 8
8
I HAD FIGURED that if anyone could teach me the times tables quickly, it was Mr. Beaker. I was right. Mr. Beaker instituted a crash program in the times tables that very evening. He and Eliza drove up in a gleaming new Starliner, which Mr. Beaker had bought for Eliza’s birthday. Eliza took all of us for a ride, and then we walked around and around the car until there was no longer enough light for us to see well.
“It’s getting pretty dark,” said my father, “we might as well go in. How about a beer, Dudley?”
Mr. Beaker and Eliza and my father and I went inside, but my mother stayed outside, sitting at the wheel of the car, humming a tune. Finally, my father opened the back door and called out to her, “Ella, come on inside now. Come on in and have a beer.”
She didn’t answer him, and he stood in the doorway for a while without saying anything else. Then we heard the car door close, and my mother’s footsteps on the driveway, and then my father moved to one side and my mother came into the kitchen. She was smiling, almost laughing, acting bubbly and girlish. She seemed to me to have gone nuts out there, sitting in the car in the driveway. She hugged my father and rumpled my hair.
“Well,” said Mr. Beaker with a let’s get-down-to-business air, “I’ve come to the conclusion that Peter can learn all he needs to know of the times tables in six days.” He spread a chart out on the kitchen table. We all stood around the table, looking down at the chart. “You see, it is really only necessary for a student at the start of the fourth grade to know the times tables for the numbers one through ten.” He chuckled with pleasure at the clever and efficient way he had tackled the problem. “Of course, the one-times table is trivial, so we can count that as finished right off the bat!” He was having a wonderful time with this. He made a large check mark beside the number 1. My father reached into the refrigerator and took out a couple of beers. He opened them and handed one to Mr. Beaker. “Would you like a beer, Eliza?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks, Bert,” said Eliza.
“How about you, Ella?” my father asked.
“Oh, not a beer,” said my mother. She turned to Eliza and said, “Let’s have something more fun than a beer.” She turned back to my father. “Make us an Old Fashioned, Bert,” she said. My father sighed and began working on a couple of Old Fashioneds.
“Well,” said Mr. Beaker, “The two- and ten-times tables are very easy, so we’ll start with those. Peter should be able to master those tonight—”
He paused and looked at me.
“—if he can keep his mind on the task at hand. I’ll have more to say about that later. Now the four- and five-times tables are really just versions of two and ten, so we’ll take care of those tomorrow night. On Wednesday evening we’ll do three and six. On Thursday we’ll do seven, which is a real rogue.”
He stopped to chuckle and to take a sip of his beer. My father set the Old Fashioneds in front of my mother and Eliza.
“On Friday, we’ll do eight, which will be almost like a vacation. And then on Saturday we’ll do nine, which is probably the toughest of them. On Sunday, we’ll review them all.”
Mr. Beaker stretched, as if the work were over. For him, it nearly was.
“Voila!” he said. “Next week, Peter will go in there knowing the times tables as well as any of them.”
We were all pleased. I felt a new confidence. I was grateful for Mr. Beaker’s help. Then he said, “Now, Peter, let’s go to your room.”
Puzzled, I followed him to my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed and he stood in front of me. He handed me a piece of paper on which he had printed the two- and ten-times tables. “Peter,” he said, resting a hand on my shoulder, “if you’re going to learn these by next week, you’re going to have to focus your attention on the times tables and nothing else. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes,” I said.
“We have to be sure that you’re going to focus your attention on the times tables and nothing else, do you understand?”
“No,” I said.
“Peter, you’re going to have to stay in your room until you have memorized these times tables and can answer any questions about them like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“What about supper?” I asked.
“Your mother will give you a plate in here,” he said.
[to be continued on Tuesday, November 16, 2021]
You can listen to this episode on the Personal History podcast.
In Topical Guide 132, Mark Dorset considers Studebakers; Real Objects in Fiction; Drinking: Cocktails, Old Fashioned and Thinking: Focusing the Attention from this episode.
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You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.