Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1899 — A MOTHER’S MATHEMATICS. [ARTICLE]

A MOTHER’S MATHEMATICS.

How She Reatoned It Ont that Her Son Was Keeping Good. Honrs. “I dunno,” said Farmer Corntassel, thoughtfully. And after an interval of several seconds he repeated In a tone of still greater perplexity, “I duiino.” “What’s the matter?” asked his wife. “I’ve been wonderin’ if mebbe we haven’t been encouragin’ Josiar a little too much in gittln’ his ideas set away from home. I like to see him branchin’ out; but he’s got so he don’t care about anythin’ that ain’t English.” “Let the boy be. There ain’t no use fur him to pin himself down. We ain’t like most farm folks you read about. -I’ll bet that if there was any mortgage on the farm he’d go out into the world an’ hustle an’ git money, so’s he could come back some Christmas just before we was goln’ to be turned out, an’ pay the whole thing off.” “I’ll put a mortgage onto the place if you think it’ll do Josiar any good,” he suggested. “What’s the use. He knows jes’ as well as you do that all you’d have to do when it run out is to go to the bank an’ git money to pay it off.” “Mebbe we’d better sell an’ move further away from town. Several nights he didn’t git to bed before 2 o’clock in the mornin’.” “Did you read that almanac you brought home?” asked his wife. “Not much. I’ve a lot o’ work to do, an’ I can’t afford to be out o’ health. Whenever I read symptoms I feel ’em.” “You was sayin’ that Josiar’s mind is sot on English an’ English ways.” “Yes.” “Well, don’t worry. There’s a piece into the almanac about the time o’ day; that is to say, about the different times o’ day it is in different parts o’ the world at the same time. I dunno’s I will explain it exackly, as I don’t understand it myself. But as near as I could make out, 2 o’clock in the mornin’ in London is about the same as 9 o’clock in the evenin’ here. An’ I think that gittin’ to bed at 9 o’clock or its equivalent is doin’ purty good fur a young man o’ Josiar’s lively temperament.”