Poor puzzled Tode! What strange language was this that Winny talked? Suppose he hadn't a whole one after all, since it took ten-tenths to make it, and he couldn't even find out what _one_ of them was. Suppose he should never have a whole one in his life, ought he not then to give anything to help on all those grand doings which Mr. Birge told about? "I don't understand a bit about it," he said at last, in a despairing tone. "Well, I knew you wouldn't," Winny answered, touches of triumph and complaisance sounding in her voice. "You musn't expect to understand such hard things until you get to them." And now the dear old mother, who had never studied fractions out of a book in her life, came suddenly to the rescue. "Have you been reading about the tenths in your Bible, deary?" she asked, with winning sympathy. "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. "But see here," said Tode. "Suppose I had a lot of money, say--well, a hundred dollars, all in ones and twos, you know--_then_ how could I manage?" "Make ten piles of it, deary, don't you see? Put just as much in one pile as another, and then you'd have it."