jacket?" demanded Dan.

"Oh, I don't know; I reckon they wear 'em when they drink tea," said
Sally.

"But we drink coffee," said Dan argumentatively.

"Well, call it a coffee jacket, then," retorted Sally. "But whatever you
call it, I'm goin' to have one, if I don't do another stitch of spring
sewin'."

Dan was gazing sadly at the picture of the tea jacket with its flowing
oriental sleeves, lace ruffles, and ribbon bows.

"I can't figger out," he said slowly, "what use you've got for a thing
like that."

"I can't either," snapped Sally, "and that's the very reason I want it.
The only things I've got any use for are gingham aprons and kitchen
towels, and they're the things I don't want; and the only things I want
are things that I haven't got a bit of use for, like this tea jacket
here, and I'm goin' to have it, too."

"All right, all right," said Dan soothingly. "If you're pleased with the
things that ain't of any use, why, have 'em, of course. Me and the
children would like right well to have a few things that are some use,
but I reckon we can get along without 'em a while longer. However, it
looks to me as if that chart calls for a good deal of calculatin', and
it's my opinion that you'd better get out your old _Ray's Arithmetic_
and study up awhile before you try to cut out that jacket."

"Maybe you're right," laughed Sally. "Arithmetic always was my stumbling
block at school. I never could learn the tables, and the first year I
was married I sold butter with just twelve ounces to the pound, till
Cousin Albert's wife told me better. She'd been takin' my butter for a
month, and one Saturday morning she said to me: 'Cousin Sally, I hate to
mention it, and I hope you won't take offence, but your butter's short
weight.' Well, of course that made me mad, but I held my temper down,
and I said: 'Cousin Ella, I think you're mistaken, I weigh my butter
myself, and I've got good true scales, and there's twelve ounces of
butter and a little over in every pound I sell.' And Cousin Ella laughed
and says: 'I know that, Cousin Sally, but there ought to be sixteen
ounces in a pound of butter. You're usin' the wrong table.' And she
picked up little Albert's arithmetic and showed me the two tables, one
for druggists and one for grocers; and there I'd been using druggist's
weight to weigh groceries. Well, we had a good laugh over it, and I put
twenty ounces of butter to the pound 'till I made up all my short
weight. I never d