A recipe for cherry cake 1/4

The day started ordinarily enough. Dave was clearing away the breakfast things as usual, while Jennifer Jane got ready for school. Mary was making sandwiches for Jennifer Jane's lunch.

"That's strange,” said Dave, looking out of the kitchen window, "there's a big dent in the lawn."

He went out to have a closer look and then hurried back inside.

"It looks as if someone's been jumping up and down on the spot. There's just two very deep footprints. Oh well I'll have to sort it out later. Come on Jennifer Jane or you'll be late for school."

He went to get his car out of the garage and Mary waved as they drove off.

While she was washing up, she saw something fall out of the sky and land with a bump in one of the flowerbeds. It turned out to be young Jim arriving for his weekly visit to do the housework. She watched him take a map out of a pocket and start checking his sums. Then he took off his half league boots and paced out the distance to the dent in the ground that Dave had noticed earlier. He scribbled a few notes and scratched his head in bewilderment. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and came indoors. Mary had a cup of tea waiting for him as he came in.

"Can't understand it," he said, "I've checked all the figures, but I'm forty five paces out from my last landing point."

"Never mind," said Mary, only too pleased that the morning's mystery had been cleared up, "here's the calculator I promised you, in the future you'll be able to check your figures much more accurately."

"Gosh that looks terrific," said Jim as he opened the box containing his new calculator, "what a lot of buttons, how does it work?"

Jim was pressing the buttons as Mary described the use of each one. His face was a picture.

Then he pulled out the calculations he'd just used for his journey. A few seconds later and he'd checked over his figures using his new calculator.

Simple error," he said grandly, "largely because I use four figure log tables which compound the error when I calculate the angle. I'll be spot on to within a couple of feet next time."

"Well there's a point there," said Mary, "would you mind landing in the flower bed next time. Dave was a bit upset about the dents in the lawn when he saw them. We can leave a bare patch in the flower bed and re-dig it if necessary."

"No bother," said Jim, "now if you don't mind leaving, I'll get on with the housework."

"Can't I stay and watch?"

"No, sorry trade secrets I'm afraid."

"Oh well," said Mary, "it's a nice day, I think I'll go and have a word with Abigail, she's always pleased to have a chat."

As Mary left, Jim was still working with his calculator and had put sheets and sheets of old calculations and a very well worn set of log tables in one of the waste paper baskets.