JACK'S ARITHMETIC

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 27, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 30.

JACK'S ARITHMETIC.

Jack was poring over his mental arithmetic. It was a new study to him, and he found it interesting. When Jack undertook anything, he went about it with heart, head, and hand.

He sat on his high stool at the table, while his father and mother sat just opposite. He was such a tiny fellow, scarcely large enough to hold the book, you would think, much less to study and calculate. But he could do both, as you shall see.

Jack's father had been speaking to his mother; and the child had been so intent on his book that he had not heard a word; but as he leaned back in his high chair to rest a moment, he heard his father say, “Dean got beastly drunk last night, drank ten glasses of wine; I was disgusted with him.”

Jack looked up with bright eyes. “How many did you drink, father?”

“I drank but one, my son,” said the father, smiling down upon his little boy.

“Then you were only one-tenth drunk,” said Jack reflectively.

“Jack!” cried his parent, sternly, in a breath; but Jack continued, with a studious air:—

“Why, yes; if ten glasses of wine make a man beastly drunk, one glass will make him one-tenth part drunk, and—”

“There, there!” interrupted the father, biting his lip to hide the smile that would come; “I think it is bedtime for you; we will have no more arithmetic to-night.”

So Jack was tucked away in bed, and was soon asleep after turning the problem over and over to see if he were wrong; but just before he had lost himself in slumber he had thought: “One thing is sure; if Dean hadn't taken that one glass, he wouldn't have been drunk; and if father had taken nine more, he would have been drunk. So it's the safest way not to take any; and I never will.”

And the next thing he was snoring, while Jack's father was thinking: “There is something in Jack's calculation after all. It is not safe to take one glass, and I will ask Dean to sign a total abstinence pledge with me to-morrow”; and he did so, and they both kept it. So great things grew out of Jack's studying mental arithmetic, you see.—Christian Advocate.