Well, if letters added up, wouldn’t we end up with a decimal point? I bet we would, take it from me.
And once, back when I was little, my mother told me that one plus one makes two. She set down an apple there, and then another apple, placed them both in the same hand of mine, and told me plainly that they made two.
I don’t know how it is in your family, but in mine whatever Mum says is the letter of the law. Though I have a notion of my own, that she made both the letter and the law, because otherwise there’s no way.
If she had stopped there, it would have been nothing, but then, once she saw I had learned with two, she set out three apples, four apples, five. That’s how it is with grown-ups: give them one finger and they take all five. So I wised up and learned to count even further, because, again, Mum said it’s for my own good that I’m learning. And I take her at her word and don’t go digging anymore, because I dug once and she turned out to be right that time too.
But I keep wondering: why is it that numbers add up?
Maybe it’s so we don’t have to say we went to the shop and bought 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sweets, but can say five straightaway, and that way you save on words and save on commas too.
Maybe it’s so we don’t count them twice, because whenever I count something, by the end I forget how many there were and I count them all over again?
Maybe it’s because they’re lonely too, and they like to be all together, just as I would rather be with my friends than set apart by a comma, all by myself.
Either way, I learned to count so I’d finally get some peace from Mum, and she from me, every time I asked her to count the sheep for me at bedtime, because I always got tangled up at five.
But these sheep, they all look far too alike, how could you not get them mixed up!