"No, I didn't know they were there till to-night, but I've been hearing about them, how the folks always used to give one-tenth, and Mr. Birge made it out that we ought to now, but I don't know what it is."
The old lady dived down into her work-basket and produced a little blue bag full of buttons, of all shapes and sizes.
"Let's you and me see if we can't study it out," she said, encouragingly. "You just count out ten of the nicest looking of them white buttons, and lay them along in a row."
Tode swiftly and silently did as directed, and waited for light to dawn on this dark subject. The old lady bent with thoughtful face over the table, and looked fixedly at the innocent buttons before she commenced.
"Now suppose," she said, impressively, "that every single one of them buttons was a five dollar bill."
"My!" said Tode, chuckling, in spite of himself, at the magnitude of the conception, but growing deeply interested as his teacher proceeded.
"And suppose the money was all yours. Well, now, it's in ten piles, ain't it? Well, suppose you take one of them piles away, and make up your mind to give it all to the Lord. Now, deary, I've studied over this a good deal to see what I ought to give, and it's my opinion that if you did that you'd be giving your tenth. Now, Winny, haven't we got at it—ain't that so?"
"Of course," said Winny, leaving her book and coming around to attend to the buttons. "Isn't that exactly what I said? One, two, three, four. You have got ten-tenths here to make the whole, and one of them is one-tenth."
"Humph!" said Tode, "You might have said it, but it didn't sound like it one mite, and don't yet. I don't see as there's any ten-tenths there at all; there's ten buttons, leastways five dollar bills."
"That's because you are not far enough advanced to understand," answered Winny, going loftily back to her seat.