"That is the way to write it. Ten-tenths make a whole, and one-tenth is written just as I've shown you."
"But, Winny," said Tode, in desperation, "never mind writing it. I don't care how they write it; tell me how they do it."
"How to do it! I don't know what you mean. Ten-tenths make a whole, I tell you, and one-tenth is just one-tenth of it, and that's all there is about it."
"The whole of what, Winny?"
"The whole of anything. It takes ten-tenths to make a whole one."
Poor puzzled Tode! What strange language was this that Winny talked? Suppose he hadn't a whole one after all, since it took ten-tenths to make it, and he couldn't even find out what one of them was. Suppose he should never have a whole one in his life, ought he not then to give anything to help on all those grand doings which Mr. Birge told about?
"I don't understand a bit about it," he said at last, in a despairing tone.
"Well, I knew you wouldn't," Winny answered, touches of triumph and complaisance sounding in her voice. "You musn't expect to understand such hard things until you get to them."
And now the dear old mother, who had never studied fractions out of a book in her life, came suddenly to the rescue.
"Have you been reading about the tenths in your Bible, deary?" she asked, with winning sympathy.