A LITTLE GAME WITH NUMBERS: Excerpt from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Recently I read Betty Smith's classic, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Amazing book. Set in the early 1900s, the protagonist, Francie, is a young girl learning her sums and creates a little game with them.

Now every time I see a grouping of numbers, a grocery store receipt, an address, telephone numbers, I can't help find Francie's "story" in the numbers! I dedicate this entry to all my accountant and banker friends. Enjoy!

"She liked numbers and sums. She devised a game in which each number was a family member and the “answer” made a family grouping with a story to it. Naught (zero) was a babe in arms. He gave no trouble. Whenever he appeared you just “carried” him. The figure 1 was a pretty baby girl just learning to walk, and easy to handle: 2 was a baby boy who could walk and talk a little. He went into family life(into sums,etc) with very little trouble. And 3 was the older boy in kindergarten, who had to be watched a little. Then there was 4, a girl of Francie’s age. She was almost as easy to “mind” as 2. The mother was 5, gentle and kind. In large sums, she came along and made everything easy the way a mother should. The father, 6, was harder than the others but very just. But 7 was mean. He was a crotchety old grandfather and not at all accountable for how he came out. The grandmother, 8, was hard too, but easier to understand than 7. Hardest of all was 9. He was company and what a hard time fitting him into family life!

When Francie added a sum, she would fix a little story to go with the result. If the answer was 924, it meant that the little boy and girl were being minded by company while the rest of the family went out. When a number such as 1024 appeared, it meant that all the little children were playing together in the yard. The number 62 meant that the papa was taking the little boy for a walk: 50 meant that mama had the baby out in the buggy for an airing and 78 meant grandfather and grandmother sitting home by the fire of a winter’s evening. Each single combination of numbers was a new set-up for the family and no two stories were ever the same."


Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,pg.167, Harper Perennial,1947