Pictures and Hieroglyphs

— Our young friend Figliuolo was a most welcome Thanksgiving present. As an only child in the house, he was left, more than most boys are, to work out his own theories and methods in all things. The Christmas after he was three, there came into the home a Shakespeare calendar, upon which a prominent feature was a large Arabic numeral for each day, the seines running consecutively through the year. As the only person always wide awake when day began, the sole supporter, indeed, of regular habits generally in the household, Figliuolo naturally attended each morning to the duty of tearing off yesterday’s leaflet. At the reading of the fresh sentiment thus exposed he “ assisted ” with dignified indifference. But though the very conception of written numbers, indeed of number itself above two, had been successfully kept out of his rather too active mind, he at once interested himself in the recurrence of the ten picturesque figures, first singly, then in groups of two, and finally of three.

Without seeking the slightest aid from alien wits, he quickly settled on a complete set of names for the cabalistic outlines. That 1 was a “ straight,” 0 a “ round,” 6 “ round, tail goes up,” 9 “ round, tail goes down,” was natural. “ Two rounds over another ” and “two crookeds over another” stood no less plainly for 8 and 3. 4 was described as “ straight and round ball,” which seems to indicate that to “ the eye of childhood ” a small triangle and a circle coincide. When asked why 7 was a “ pulling off,” he explained clearly that the “straight” was like a flagpole, and the pennon was trying to pull itself off. Equally eager and confident explanation was offered for “walking off” (5) and “flying off” (2), but our duller senile vision and logic never quite grasped these finer details.

Though still without suspicion that these daily comrades stood for numbers, — indeed with utter indifference to any figurative significance in the pictures, —Figliuolo worked out fully, from observation, the true order of succession, and long before midsummer would announce : “ Yes, this is a straight, straight’n’round ball, tail goes up; next’ll be straight, walking off and round ; ” that is, after 149 would follow 150, That the turn of the decade was thus mastered was already noteworthy. When the third digit appeared, its slow change, once in a hundred days, did not prevent the scientific observer from noting that it followed the same law. We still remember the silent astonishment with which his remark upon 299 was greeted : “ Now I think next it ’ll be two crookeds over another, ’n’ two round balls; may n’t I just peek and see if it is n’t ?” This was the first sign of impatience, though that century must have passed as slowly for him as with a botanist whose sole devotion is centred upon the “ Agave Americana.” (Time, if it indeed be at all, is purely relative. “ Prometheus was a naughty boy, that meddled with the fire, and was tied up on the rock, and kept there thirteen generations. ‘ How long is thirteen generations anyway ? Is it more than twenty minutes ? ’ ” asks, interrupting himself, the glib-tongued child of the Greek professor.)

Outdoor life soon taught that the same signs reappeared regularly upon door-plates, locomotives, street cars, etc., ad infinitum. Many a conductor has started, as with an uneasy conscience, when a critical eye was fixed upon his cap’s shining frontlet, and a piercing voice inquired : “ Two crookeds, straight, ’n’ tail goes down : what ’s that, mamma?” For even into this guarded Eden the seed of the forbidden tree fell at last, and keen ears noted that elder folk, perversely ignoring the picturesque element, assigned to these familiar tokens a mere numerical value.

By the middle of his fifth year numeration, likewise self-taught and at first nowise connected with the favorite insignia, had also reached the thousand-point ; and very soon Figliuolo himself could say readily : “Two rounds over another, pulling off, walking off : you call it 875 ; ” a process of translation in which his Highness’ chief adherents had long been, perforce, adepts. Under the influence of maturer children, and the unwise mirth of those seniors who were permitted to overhear, the older nomenclature finally passed out of use, and now has long since faded, like so many fair visions of the morning, into the light of common day.