A method of teaching arithmetic was in vogue some years ago by which the answer to each problem was printed in the back of the book. Sometimes a problem was stated wrongly or the answer given was incorrect. Of course, that complicated matters. I believe they teach arithmetic differently now. Mildred worked unceasingly at her problem. She worked at it quite cheerfully as she set out briskly in the morning for her two mile walk from her home to the shop where she was employed as a cash girl. She worked at it wearily as she crept home on tired swollen feet, when every automobile as it whizzed past her seemed to scream “cash!” with its shrill siren. The problem dealt with figures so small it would seem a child in the third grade could solve it. Mildred knew it to be so difficult that no professor of mathematics could have brought her nearer the answer. This was the problem, though Mildred did not state it in quite the same way. Let _x_ equal $3.50, her earnings. From _x_, plus the very small and uncertain earnings of her mother, take food for five plus rent and leave enough for a neat black dress. She had multiplied the earnings by many weeks but she had to multiply the food and rent by an equal number and the answer never came right. Sometimes, just to keep up her spirits, she would pretend she had solved it—then what a pleasant array of problems presented themselves! The black dress meant a clerk’s position and added salary. With that as a beginning one might figure up to a buyer’s position. Somewhere between lay the possibilities of some problems like this: Let _x_ equal Mildred’s salary: _x_ minus rent, minus food, minus clothes equals _y_, which is enough left over to permit the tired mother to hire a woman for the washing. One must be half starved and insufficiently clad to realize the magnitude of that problem, rightly solved. The storms of early spring in New York solve many problems by eliminating the mathematician. In Mildred’s case they only postponed the solving. Shoes have no hopes nor dreams, nor even problems, to keep them from wearing out in miles of daily walking over cobblestones, and miles of walking back and forth in the store. Mildred’s shoes developed gaps and fissures, and were useless to keep out the wet. Rent was due. There was no money to be spared even for carfare. So huge a sum as new shoes meant was impossible. Mildred developed pneumonia. There are people in every city who put aside their own problems to help solve those of others. To one in Mildred’s straits these became, no longer dreaded agents of charity, to be avoided, but friends. It was due to one of these friends that Mildred recovered. But with convalescence returned her problem, its weary repetition standing between her and health. It was then the kindly agent went to her former employer. His sympathy was sincere. There were tears in his eyes when the story was finished.