"
"People do care, though," was the reply, "for they expect, when in the
woods, to live out of doors; but the India-rubber is certainly a great
improvement on tents that get soaked through."
"I like it," said Edith, "because it rubs things out. When I draw a
house and it's all wrong, my piece of India-rubber will take it away,
and then I can make another one on the paper."
"That is the very smallest of its uses," replied Miss Harson, smiling at
the little girl's earnestness, "and yet we find it a great convenience.
An English writer, speaking of it when it was first known in England,
said that he had seen a substance that would efface from paper the marks
of a black-lead pencil, and he thought it must be of use to those who
practiced drawing."
"How funny that sounds!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Why, I couldn't get along
without my India-rubber when I make mistakes,"
"You might," said his governess, "if you had some stale bread to rub
with; for people _have_ gotten along without a great many things which
they now think necessary."
"Miss Harson," said Clara, "won't you tell us, please, how they get the
caoutch--whatever it is--and make it into India-rubber?"
"I will," was the laughing reply, "when you can say the word properly.
C-a-o-u-t-c-h-o-u-c--koochook."
As Clara said, Miss Harson made things so easy to understand! and in a
very short time the hard word was mastered.
"As I have never seen the sap gathered," continued the young lady, "I
shall have to read you an account of it, instead of telling you from my
own experience; but the description is so plain that I think we shall
all be able to understand it very well: 'At certain seasons of the year
the natives visit some islands in the river Amazon that for many months
are covered with water.
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