JOHNNY'S ARITHMETIC.
JOHNNY was pouring over his mental arithmetic. It was a new study to him, and he found it interesting.
When Johnny 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.
Johnny's father had been speaking to his mother; and Johnny 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." Johnny 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 Johnny, reflectively.
"Johnny!" cried his parent, sternly, in a breath; but Johnny 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 guess it is bedtime for you; we will have no more arithmetic tonight."
So Johnny was tucked away in bed, and sound asleep turning the problem over and over to see if he was wrong; for 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 Johnny's father was thinking,
"There is something in Johnny'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 tomorrow; and he did so, and they both kept it. So great things grew out of Johnny's studying mental arithmetic, you see.
Christian Advocate.
MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES.
SIR WALTER SCOTT, in a narrative of his personal history, gives the following caution: "If it should ever fall to the lot of youth to peruse these pages, let such readers remember that it is with the deepest regret that I recollect in my manhood the opportunities of learning which I neglected in my youth; that through every part of my literary career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own ignorance; and I would this moment give half of the reputation I have had the good fortune to acquire, if by so doing I could rest the remaining part upon a sound foundation of learning and science."