adult who cannot read and write, and the encounter is generally as
amusing as it is amazing. In one of the interior towns of Pennsylvania
there lives a farmer who brings butter, eggs and produce to market, and,
being illiterate, also brings with him his son to do the "figuring." The
other day the son was ill, and the old man had to venture alone. For
awhile he got along very well by letting his customers do the figuring;
but presently he sold two rolls of butter to a woman who could not
figure any better than he. The farmer was much puzzled, but, being
resolved that she should not know that his early education had been
neglected, he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and began. He put
down a lot of marks on the paper, and then said, "Let's see; dot's a
dot, figure's a figure, two from one and none remains, with three to
carry--$1.50, madam, please." She paid over the $1.50, took the butter
home, had it weighed and "figured up" by her daughter, who discovered
that the price should have been $2.10 instead of $1.50.


A small Detroit boy was given a drum for a Christmas present, and was
beating it vociferously on the sidewalk, when a nervous neighbor
appeared, and asked, "How much did your father pay for that drum, my
little man?" "Twenty-five cents, sir," was the reply. "Will you take a
dollar for it?" "Oh, yes, sir," said the boy, eagerly. "Ma said she
hoped I'd sell it for ten cents." The exchange was made, and the drum
put where it wouldn't make any more noise, and the nervous man chuckled
over his stratagem. But, to his horror, when he got home that night
there were four drums beating in front of his house, and as he made his
appearance, the leader stepped up and said, cheerfully, "These are my
cousins, sir. I took that dollar and bought four new drums. Do you want
to give us four dollars for them?" The nervous neighbor rushed into the
house in despair, and the drum corps is doubtless beating yet in front