He did not and would not go to school, and he asserts now that if he had done so he "would have become as big a fool as other people." A shiftless fellow, left to his own devices, he performed some wonderful feats, and among the many stories connected with this period of his life is one which describes how he actually ate up a good-sized patch of sugar cane, simply because he found it good to his taste.
Yet from this clouded, illiterate mind a wonderful mathematical gift shines.

Just when he began to assert his powers is not known; but his feats have been remembered for twenty years by his neighbors.

A report says:-- "Give Rube Fields the distance by rail between any two points, and the dimensions of a car-wheel, and almost as soon as the statement has left your lips he will tell you the number of revolutions the wheel will make in traveling over the track.

Call four or five or any number of columns of figures down a page, and when you have reached the bottom he will announce the sum.

Given the number of yards or pounds of articles and the price, and at once he will return the total cost--and this he will do all day long, without apparent effort or fatigue.
"A gentleman relates an instance of Fields' knowledge of figures.
After having called several columns of figures for addition, he went back to the first column, saying that it was wrong, and repeating it, purposely miscalling the next to the last figure.