Obadiah, a Child with a Numerical Obsession

In the strangeness of a new school and a new home, Obadiah stood aloof, watching?and counting. To him, it was a peculiar community?this one in which children did what they were told, and a curious house, too, where a shrill shriek of "When's Obadiah going to get his pie?" brought no response. So he watched with large grey eyes, and, because he could not help it, he counted, with swift, furtive movements of the lips, the chairs in the room, the roses in the border on his plate, the raisins in the pudding, the scallops on his doily, everything that could be translated into number. With the children he felt no consciousness of kind. Sometimes