In this age of enlightenment it is not often that one meets with an adult who cannot read and write, and the encounter is generally as amusing as it is amazing.  In one of the interior towns of Pennsylvania there lives a farmer who brings butter, eggs and produce to market, and, being illiterate, also brings with him his son to do the “figuring.”  The other day the son was ill, and the old man had to venture alone.  For awhile he got along very well by letting his customers do the figuring; but presently he sold two rolls of butter to a woman who could not figure any better than he.  The farmer was much puzzled, but, being resolved that she should not know that his early education had been neglected, he took a scrap of paper from his pocket and began.  He put down a lot of marks on the paper, and then said, “Let’s see; dot’s a dot, figure’s a figure, two from one and none remains, with three to carry—­$1.50, madam, please.”  She paid over the $1.50, took the butter home, had it weighed and “figured up” by her daughter, who discovered that the price should have been $2.10 instead of $1.50.

A small Detroit boy was given a drum for a Christmas present, and was beating it vociferously on the sidewalk, when a nervous neighbor appeared, and asked, “How much did your father pay for that drum, my little man?” “Twenty-five cents, sir,” was the reply.  “Will you take a dollar for it?” “Oh, yes, sir,” said the boy, eagerly.  “Ma said she hoped I’d sell it for ten cents.”  The exchange was made, and the drum put where it wouldn’t make any more noise, and the nervous man chuckled over his stratagem.  But, to his horror, when he got home that night there were four drums beating in front of his house, and as he made his appearance, the leader stepped up and said, cheerfully, “These are my cousins, sir.  I took that dollar and bought four new drums.  Do you want to give us four dollars for them?” The nervous neighbor rushed into the house in despair, and the drum corps is doubtless beating yet in front of his house.

Photography is an art that looks to be easier than it is, but some beginners add to their difficulties by inexcusable carelessness.  A young lady bought a Kodak at a dealer’s before she went on her summer vacation, and was so confident of her own ability that she took only the book of directions and went off.  She took seventy or eighty shots in picturesque places, and promised copies to all her friends.  When she came home, she left the camera to have the film developed and printed.  The artist developed on and on, but found none but blanks.  In great surprise, he sent for the amateur photographer, and when she came he asked, “How did you operate this camera?” “Operate it?  Why, I pulled the string as the book says, and touched the button.”  “But what did you do with this little black cap here?” “Why, I didn’t do anything with it,” she replied.  And then the artist roared with laughter.  She had never once removed the cap that covered the lens, and had, of course, taken not a single picture, and when she found what she had done, or rather not done, she wept bitter tears.