If there’s one sure proof that times are getting more civilized than they used to be ’tis the way business is carried on nowadays. Why years ago, according to Grampa Walcott, ’twas something awful. And to prove his point, a thing which Grampa is always ready and willing to do, he tells this story about how he got the pair of swileskin slippers that he’s been wearing now for nigh on thirty year. Of course, he’s had three new pair of soles and two new pair of uppers in ’em during that time, but they’re the same pair of slippers. And he likes to treasure ’em because, he says, they remind him of the one and only time he ever got the better of old Josiah Bartle, who was the merchant here thirty year ago. And even then, he said, he’d never a got ’em only for a thing called Algebra. When I asked him what in the world Algebra was, he said he didn’t know but it must be a wonderful fine thing sure enough to help a poor man like him get the better of a shrewd old bird like Josiah Bartle.
’Twas ’long about the middle of April in 1931, says Grampa, when Liz his Missus, that’s Grandma, told him the molasses keg was empty and he’d better go down to Josiah’s store and get some. Grampa wondered how he’d pay for it ’cause ’twas too early in the spring to get credit on next summer’s account and he certainly didn’t want to disturb the bit of gold he had in the sock and ’twas then Liz reminded him of his two swileskins. True, one of ’em had some shotholes in ’im but the other was perfect and between ’em they ought to fetch enough lassy to tide them over ’til credit time. So, taking his empty keg and the two swileskins, off he went.
Now Skipper Josiah, the merchant, was glad to see him, business being what it was that time of the year, and told Grampa how lassy was current price, a dollar a gallon. Likewise, swileskins was current price, a dollar a skin. Grampa asked him what about shotholes. Josiah told him they was current price too, ten cents off for every shothole. Well, Grampa didn’t need any learning to figure he ought to get a gallon for the good skin and a part of a gallon for the shotholey one. So when Josiah come back from the inside where he kept his swileskins and lassy and things like that and said right friendly-like “Here ya are, Ben. Here’s your keg with your half gallon of lassy,” Grampa was took aback and said it ought to be more than a half a gallon. Well, Josiah rubbed his hands, friendlier than ever, and said “No, a half a gallon was exactly right. You see,” he said, “two swileskins at a dollar each was two dollars. Then fifteen shotholes in one of ’em at ten cents a shothole, that was a dollar fifty. Take that off the two dollars and you had fifty cents left and with lassy a dollar a gallon, here was his half gallon.”
Now Grampa knowed there was something wrong. He said there was nar shothole at all in one of ’em and he asked Josiah to give him a gallon for that one and give him back the holey one, but Josiah explained that he couldn’t do that because the two skins went together in what was called in business “a package deal”, where the good points of the one had to offset the bad points of the other. Then Grampa wanted to call the whole thing off and go home again with the two skins and his empty keg. But Josiah said no, business was business and what was done couldn’t be undone, oh my the business world’d never know where it stood. Then Grampa made a remark but Josiah threatened the law on him for it so all there was left for him to do was go home.
Now when Liz his Missus, Grandma that is now, tipped up the keg that night to full the molassy dish, she noticed there wasn’t much in it so she wormed the story out of Grampa and give him twenty-four hours to go back to Josiah and get his rights or else she’d do it. Of course, a thing like that’d disgrace Grampa completely so he spent nearly all that night lying awake thinking up a scheme.
Next morning he had it and he went over to Uncle Phin Prior to get his help in carrying it out and Uncle Phin was only too glad to do it. And so the upshot was, late that evening Grampa visited Josiah’s store and Phin Prior with two or three more had just started an argument about the big profits merchants made. They asked Grampa’s opinion and he went even further than the rest and said yes, merchants often sold things for ten times what they paid for ’em. Well, Josiah got mad and he poked his snout right into the trap. He told Grampa he’d be glad to sell anything he had for ten times what he’d paid for it. “All right then,” said Grampa, “sell me back that swileskin that got the fifteen shotholes in it.”
Well, what a hullyballoo. Everybody wanted the particulars and they all agreed that Josiah hadn’t paid nothing for it. So being as how ten times nothing was nothing, Josiah was bound by his word of a man to give it back to Grampa for nothing. Now if Josiah’d give in right then he’d a been better off but he couldn’t bear to get the worst of it so he said he wouldn’t be guided by people with less book learning even than he had and then who should come in but the school master and they put the thing square up to him. And, says Grampa, ’twas the schoolmaster that brought up this business about Algebra.
According to Algebra, said the schoolmaster, Josiah hadn’t just paid nothing for the swileskin with the holes, he’d paid fifty cents less than nothing, because he’d took off fifty cents from the good one on account of it. Now Algebra called that a minus fifty cents and ten times that was a minus five dollars which again, according to Algebra, meant that Josiah had to give Grampa back the skin and five dollars besides. Well, Josiah was fit to be tied and he said that, mark his words, Algebra someday’d be the ruination of business. But he give Grampa back the skin and the five dollars besides and Grampa went home happy. Liz wasn’t so happy though. She said if that was what Algebra was like, ’twas no better than Bingo and she made Grampa give the five dollars to the Church Organ Fund. But she let him keep the swileskin and that’s what he made the pair of slippers out of that he wears to this very day. He calls ’em his Algebra Slippers and he says that , whatever Algebra is, there’s no doubt about it, ’tis a true friend to the poor man.