“So, I understand you want to learn subtraction by next week, Robert.”
“Yeah, so, I need tutoring.”
“OK; we need to get you through addition, addition on paper, and addition with carrying ones – but we can come back and get high stacked addition later.”
“This sounds like my favorite thing – a buffet!”
“When you love math, the world is a buffet.”
“You know, you gotta be the greatest tutor ever!”
“Doing my best, Robert, doing my best.”
Nine-year-old Louisa Dubois Chennault, having moved to Lofton County, VA with her grandparents for the gifted programs the Stepforth family had set up, always helped her friends with math, and had just made a new friend: five-year-old Mr. Robert Edward Ludlow III.
“I can't call him Lil' Robert – that's not professional, because he's only four years younger, and actually, he's kinda big for someone who was still a toddler in March.”
Lil' Robert Ludlow proved to be a dedicated student – what he said he wanted, he did, and age was just a number. He had a good profile: he wanted muscles like his army cousins Col. H.F. Lee and grandfather R.E. Ludlow Sr., so he worked out with them every day. His attitude was that if it was going to take 11-13 years, “Well, I guess I better get started.” Getting started and following through was Lil' Robert's big thing.
Now, Lil' Robert had realized that adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing would help him make sure not only he but everyone got enough to eat, so since he was going to West Point like his cousin and grandfather, he was going to be the general of food, and make sure the U.S. Army everywhere got enough to eat.
“Yep,” Louisa said. “That's going to take a lot of math, so yeah, we better get started.”
Louisa sent over some basic math worksheets for Lil' Robert to work on at his reading level – he didn't really like reading, but Grayson his six-year-old brother had told them that if they stayed at it, there were page turners that would turn themselves that the big people got to read – so he stayed at that and reading on a second-grade level as a kindergartener. Louisa figured this out just listening to him talk, and the math worksheets were just right.
“OK, hold on, I'mma Zoom you back – I got this!”
And he did. The worksheet that was supposed to take a week took Lil' Robert only an hour.
“I told y'all I got this!” he said to his big siblings ten-year-old Andrew and eleven-year-old Eleanor when they checked in astonishment. “Keep the printer on! I need more!”
Louisa sent Lil' Robert more worksheets later on.
But to really understand why various adults were observing this and just falling out laughing – which of course nobody under 12 was able to do – one has to understand the big heart of Lil' Robert Ludlow, and thus the other things he understood in the world. He walked right up on nine-year-old Vertran Stepforth, who had proposed to Louisa while he was eight years and nine months old, and she had accepted.
“I need to talk to you, man to man,” Lil' Robert boldly said to the now nine-year-old Vertran. “First, thank you for making the connect, but, see, I need you to get that you gotta treat Louisa right from now until Heaven, because, see, I will take her from you because she gotta be treated right because when you have someone that believes in you, you just gotta take care of them and treat 'em right, and, see, ask George. He's my nine-year-old brother, and, see, he knows. If I gotta fight you, I gotta fight you, and I'mma win – because, see, she just gotta be treated right, and if you won't, it's gonna be a problem for you. Not me. Not Louisa. You. So you gotta promise to treat her right.”
“Rob, I didn't ask her to marry me not to treat her right. I already am getting my businesses together [Vertran was huge on YouTube and also Hive's own Threespeak], and I'm watching my dad and grandfathers treat their wives right and her grandfather treat her grandmother right so I can do it.”
“Promise me and we'll shake on it.”
“Absolutely, Rob! I promise – and since God heard that too, ain't gonna be no problems, man!”
They shook and then hugged and then ran back off into childhood again.
“I'm so glad we're moving down here next week,” Mrs. Maggie Lee said as she wiped her eyes from laughing. “Life without these kids would seem too much like a rather dull essay!”
Col. H.F. Lee was still laughing so hard he couldn't get a word out.
Almost 18-year-old Vanna Stepforth was eating popcorn with her 21-year-old brother Melvin on the porch.
“Major Dubois told us La Romance de Vertran et Louisa was the best television not on television,” Vanna said, “but we didn't know it was this spicy!”
“The Anglo-Saxon rival for Louisa has entered the plot!” Melvin said, “and Mr. Robert Edward Ludlow III would be a tough customer to have as a romantic rival if he knew what either of those words meant!”
“Next week, though!” Vanna said, and both of them joined their 16-year-old cousin Tom and their Stepforth grandparents in busting out laughing.
