“I do think Edith is the queerest girl I ever saw in all my life!” said Marty Ashford.

“Don't jump up and down behind my chair that way, Marty,” said her mother; “you shake me so that I can scarcely hold my needle. What does Edith do that is so queer?”

“Oh, she's always putting ten into things.”

“Putting ten into things?”

“Yes'm. I mean when she gets any money she always says ten will go into it so many times, and then she takes a tenth of it—you know we learn about tenths in fractions at school—and goes and puts it in a blue box she has.”

“I should call that taking ten out of things.”

“Well, whatever it is, that's what she does. Every time she gets ten cents she puts one cent in her blue box.”

“What does she do if she only gets five cents?”

“Oh, she keeps it very carefully till she gets another five, and then she takes her tenth out of it. And would you believe it, when we were all at Asbury Park last summer—”

“Marty,” interrupted her mother, “can't you tell me just as well sitting still? You fidget so that you make me dreadfully nervous. Can't you sit still?”

“I don't believe I can, but I'll try real hard,” said Marty, crowding herself into Freddie's little rocking-chair and clasping her arms around her knees, as if to hold herself still.

“Well, what about Asbury Park?” Mrs. Ashford asked.

“Why, when we were at Asbury Park and Edith's father was going to New York, he gave her a whole dollar to do what she pleased with. Now you know it would be the easiest thing in the world to spend a dollar there. I could spend it just as easy as anything.”

“I dare say you could,” said Mrs. Ashford, laughing.

“And any way you know it was vacation, and even if you save tenths other times you oughtn't to feel as if you must do it in vacation. But Edith had to go and get her dollar changed and put ten cents of it in the old blue box.”

“So she would not take a vacation from her tenths?”

“No, indeed. And the other day when her uncle from Baltimore was here, he gave her fifty cents, and it would just pay for a perfectly lovely paintbox that she wants; but she couldn't buy it because five cents of the fifty was tenths; and now she'll have to wait till she gets some more money.”

“What does she do with all the money in the blue box?” Mrs. Ashford inquired.

“Oh, she gives it to some mission-band!” replied Marty in a tone of disgust.

“Is that the mission-band Miss Agnes Walsh wanted you to join?”

“Yes, ma'am; but I didn't want to take up my Saturdays going to a thing like that, I'd rather play.”

“Let me see,” said Mrs. Ashford, “what is the name of that band?”

“Missionary Twigs,” replied Marty. “Funny kind of a name, isn't it?”

Then presently she said, “I don't think Edith always takes the tenths out fair; for when her grandma was away lately for six days she paid Edith three cents a day for watering her plants, and of course that was eighteen cents. So the tenth was a good deal over one cent and not quite two, and yet Edith put two cents of it away.”

“I think that was more than fair.”

“Well, I suppose it was,” Marty admitted. She actually sat quite still for two or three minutes thinking, and then asked,

“Mamma—I never thought of this before but what do you suppose is the reason she saves tenths? Why doesn't she save ninths or elevenths or something else?”

“Why don't you ask her?” suggested Mrs. Ashford.

“I will,” exclaimed Marty. “I'll ask her the very next time I go over there.”

Which was in about five minutes, for Edith lived in the same block and the little girls were constantly visiting each other. This being Saturday, of course there was no school. Marty ran in at the side gate and through the kitchen with a “How do, Mary?” to the cook. Edith heard her coming and called over the stairs,

“O Marty, come right up! I was just wishing you would come over and help me.”

Marty flew up stairs and into the nursery. Edith's dolls were sitting in a row on the little bureau, some dressed and some undressed, and Edith was standing in front of them looking very much perplexed.

“Oh! I'm so glad you've come,” she said. “Now you can help me with these troublesome dolls.”

“What's the matter with them?”

“Why, we've just heard that Aunt Julia and Fanny are coming to tea this evening, and of course I want the dolls to look decent. I wouldn't have Fanny see them in their everyday clothes for anything; and they don't seem to have enough good clothes to go around.”

“Let's see what they've got,” said Marty, plunging into business with her usual energy.

“Well,” said Edith, “Queenie has her new white Swiss, so she's all right, and she can have Virginia's surah sash. Louisa Alcott can wear her black silk skirt and borrow Queenie's blue cashmere waist. But Harriet has nothing fit for an evening.”

“Let her wear the sailor suit she came in, and say she's just home from the seaside,” suggested Marty, after a moment's meditation.

“Yes, that will do,” replied Edith. “But what about Virginia? Her white dress is soiled, her red gauze is badly torn, and she can't borrow from the others because she's so much larger. To be sure she has this pale blue tea-gown I made myself. Do you think it would be good enough?” and she held it up doubtfully.

“No,” said Marty candidly, “I don't think it would. It isn't made very well. It's kind of baggy. Hasn't she anything else?”

“Nothing but a brown woollen walking dress and a Mother Hubbard wrapper.”

“Neither of those will do,” Marty decided.

Then she put her finger to her lip and thought.

A bright idea occurred to her presently.

“Put her to bed and make believe she's sick. She can wear the best nightdress, trimmed with lace, and we can put on the ruffled pillow-cases and fix up the bed real nice.”

“That will be splendid!” cried Edith. “I knew you'd think of something!”

They went to work on the plans proposed, and soon had the whole family in presentable condition. So busy were they with the dolls that Marty would have forgotten the errand she came on, had she not happened to catch a glimpse of the blue box when Edith opened a drawer. Then she exclaimed,

“Oh! Edie, what I came over for was to ask you why you save tenths.”

“Why I do what?” said Edith, wondering.

“Why you put tenths away in your box. Why don't you save eighths or ninths or something else?”

“Because the Bible says tenths,” Edith replied.

“The Bible!” cried Marty. “Does the Bible say anything about saving tenths for a mission-band?”

“No, not just that; but it says—wait, I'll get my Bible and show you what it does say.”

She ran into her room, and bringing her Bible, sat down on a low chair and eagerly turned the leaves. Marty knelt close beside her, bending over the book also, so that her brown curls pressed against Edith's wavy golden hair.

“Here's one of the verses,” said Edith. “Leviticus twenty-seventh chapter and thirtieth verse: 'And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's; it is holy unto the Lord.'”

“There's nothing about tenths in that,” said Marty.

“Tithes means tenths—the tenth part,” Edith explained.

“Oh! does it? Well, you see, I didn't know.”

“Yes; here it is in the thirty-second verse: 'And concerning the tithe of the herd or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord.'”

“But there's nothing in all that about money,” Marty objected. “It's all fruit and flocks and herds.”

“I know,” Edith replied, “but mamma says that flocks and herds and money are all different kinds of property. The Jews hadn't much money; their property was flocks and herds and such things. Giving tenths of what they had for the Lord's service was a very important part of their religion.”

“Yes, but you are not a Jew,” said Marty. “Besides, you give your tenths to a mission-band.”

“But the mission-band sends the money to a big society that uses it to send people to tell the heathen about God.”

“Is that what mission-bands are for—to send people to teach the heathen?” asked Marty.

“Yes, and to tell us about the heathen, so that we shall want to send the gospel to them,” said Edith. “Giving to help teach people about God is giving to him, isn't it?”

“And does the Bible say that everybody must give tenths?” asked Marty.

“No,” said Edith, “there is another plan in the New Testament. Mamma says that it is good for older people, but for little children who haven't good judgment, the Jewish plan of giving tenths is better.”

“It must be pretty hard to have to give some of your money away, whether you want to or not,” said Marty.

“Oh! but I always want to,” Edith declared. “The longer I do this way the better I like it.”

“Well,” remarked Marty consolingly, “a tenth isn't much any way; you'd hardly miss it. Neither would the Jews, for I guess they were pretty rich.”

“Oh! the tenth wasn't all they gave, and it isn't all I give. For me it is just the—the—beginning, the sure thing. The Jews had other ways of giving—first-fruits and thank-offerings and praise-offerings and free-will-offerings. And sometimes I give thank-offerings and praise-offerings too, but they are extra; the tenths I give always.”

“It's all dreadfully mixed up,” said poor Marty.

“I suppose it is, the way I tell it,” Edith candidly admitted. “Let us go and get mamma to tell you, the way she told me.”

Marty willingly agreed, and they went into the sitting-room where Mrs. Howell was sewing.

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