I heard it said that I was a tool to assist in civilization, and I soon found myself aiding men in commercial transactions. I had manifold experiences and, like most useful people, found that while age increased my usefulness it subdued my glitter. At last, after many, many years, I fell into the hands of a Sabbath-school Superintendent with a missionary spirit, and by him was distributed with many of my companions to the children of his Sabbath-school, with the injunction to multiply. I fell into the hands of a boy who undertook to help me in a business way which should tend to my rapid increase. At the end of a fixed period I and my companions were to be returned to the Superintendent with our respective gains; and then, after relating our experiences, we were to be sent forth as missionaries to the Indians. Before this, my aims had been simply to aid in commerce, with no definite plan before me, and like all who have no fixed purpose, I drifted here and there and took no special interest in the world. But now I was to become a missionary; I was not only to aid in civilization but in advancing Christianity. My new aim in life made me anxious concerning the boy who was to be my helper. I took the deepest interest in all his plans in regard to me and listened attentively when he bargained with his father for a fourth of a cent's worth of yarn and the use of a needle with which to darn his father's socks. I thought that a boy of sixteen who was willing to increase me by undertaking to darn his father's stockings, deserved all the aid that I could give him. I looked on with interest and admiration, while he, with earnest toil, completed his task. When the task was ended, I found myself increased from one to three cents. This small beginning was in reality the most important of all our transactions and demonstrated that we could work harmoniously together. While he went to the St. Lawrence for his vacation, he did not give me a vacation nor wrap me in a napkin, but left me where I grew to four cents. Then we invested my whole increase in hickory nuts, which transaction increased me to fifteen cents. I here discovered that I had not only multiplied but had become of a more precious metal. I was now silver. We now invested in peanuts and hickory nuts and I was increased from fifteen to thirty cents. The community in which we lived manifested such a fondness for peanuts that we again invested and I found myself increased to seventy-five cents.