Smart - the poem

My dad was a WWII Vet. On this Veterans Day I came across a poem from cartoonist Shel Silverstein whose work appeared in copies of the Pacific military newspaper Stars and Stripes that my dad brought home from the war.

As I read the poem, I formulated a simple question for future readers. Of the father and son in the poem, if one went to public school and the other went to private school, which went to which?

Smart

by Shell Silverstein

My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes—I guess he don’t know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ‘cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head—
Too proud of me to speak!