"I'm just going to show you. You see, the lesson you gave me to-day is the addition table, and that addition table is a tough, ugly job, I can tell you. Well, I pelted away at it till dinner time, and I guess by that time I knew almost as much as I did before I begun it; and I went to Jones' after my dinner, and Mr. Jones he wanted me to take a note for him to a man at the bank, just around the corner from there, you know. Well I went, and the man I took the note to was busy counting money. He wouldn't look at me, but just counted away like lightning. I never see anything like it in my life, the way he did fly off them bills. It wasn't a quarter of a minute when he said to a man who stood waiting, 'Nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars, sir. All right.' Now just think of counting such a pile of money as that in about the time it would take me to count seventy-eight cents? Well, I come back, and I pitched into the addition table harder than ever, because, I thinks to myself, there's no telling but that I may have some money to count one of these days, and I guess I'll get ready to count it. But it was tough work. All at once, while I was looking at my pasteboard, and wondering what I should do with this end, it came to me. Now I'll explain. You see them nine figures around there? Well, thinks I, now there ain't but nine figures in this world, 'cause Pliny Hastings he told me that once, and I've noticed it lots of times since, that you may talk about just as many things as you're a mind to, and you'll just be using them same nine figures over and over again, with a nothing thrown in now and then, you know. Now, then, s'pose I begin at this one, and I say, 'one and two is three, and three is six, and four is ten.'"
"For pity's sake say 'are ten,'" interposed Winny.
"Why?"
"Because it's right. Go on."
"Well, now, I could remember just as quick again if you'd give a fellow a reason for it. Well, and four are ten, and so all around to the nine. Well, I say that, and say it, and say it, till it goes itself, and then I begin at two, and say two and three is—no, are five, and on round to the nine, only this time I take in the one at the other end. Understand? Well, after I've learned that I begin with the three, and go around to the two, and so on with them all; and then I mix them up and say them every which way, and after I've put them a few different ways, let's see you give me a line of figures that I can't add!"
"That is so," said Winny, at last, speaking slowly and admiringly. "It is a very good way indeed. Tode, I shouldn't wonder if you would know a great deal after awhile."
"Well now," answered Tode, gleefully, "I call this a pretty good evening's work, painted a sign and made a new arithmetic, enough sight easier than the other, so far as it goes; and you've helped me, so now I'll help you, turn about is fair play. Bring out your grammar, and let's see what it looks like, and to-morrow I'll go into the second-hand bookstore and hunt one up. Then I'll pitch in and learn everything I come to."
He was true to his word, and thereafter grammar was added to the numerous studies to which he gave all his leisure time. Perhaps no motto could have been given Tode that would have helped him so much in this matter of study as did the one which he had overheard and adopted for his own: "Learn everything I possibly can about everything that can be learned." He was obeying its instructions to the very letter.
Sunday morning dawned brightly upon him. The first Sunday in his new business. The air was balmy with the breath of spring.
"Oh, oh," said Tode, drawing long breaths and inhaling the perfume of swelling buds and springing blades, "I just wish I could go to church to-day, I do. Wouldn't it be nice now to put on my clean shirt, and make myself look nice and spry, and step around there to Mr. Birge's church and hear another preach? I'd like that first-rate; but now there's no use in talking. 'Do everything exactly in its time,' that's one of my rules, and I'm bound to live up to them; and it's time now for me to go to my business. I'll go to church this evening, I will. I ought to be glad that folks don't want coffee and cakes much of evening, instead of grumbling about having to give 'em some this morning."