Through Forest and Fire | Page 5

fire, as though in deep meditation. His wife sat in her
chair on the other side, and was busy with her knitting, while perhaps
her thoughts were wandering away to that loved Fatherland which she
had left so many years before, never to see again. Nellie had grown
sleepy and gone to bed.
Mr. Ribsam turned his head and looked at Nick. The boy was seated
close to the lamp on the table, and the scratching of his pencil on his
slate and his glances at the slip of paper lying on the stand, with the
problems written upon it, told plainly enough what occupied his

thoughts.
"Nicholas," said the father.
"Just one minute, please," replied the lad, glancing hastily up: "I am on
the last of the problems that Mr. Layton gave us for this week, and I
have it almost finished."
The protest of the boy was so respectful that the father resumed his
smoking and waited until Nick laid his slate on the table and wheeled
his chair around.
"There, father, I am through."
"Read owed loud dot sum von you shoost don't do."
"Mr. Layton gave a dozen original problems as he called them, to our
class to-day, and we have a week in which to solve them. I like that
kind of work, and so I kept at it this evening until I finished them all."
"You vos sure dot you ain't right, Nicholas, eh?"
"I have proved every one of them. Oh, you asked me to read the last
one! When Mr. Layton read that we all laughed because it was so
simple, but when you come to study it it isn't so simple as you would
think. It is this: If New York has fifty per cent. more population than
Philadelphia, what per cent. has Philadelphia less than New York?"
Mr. Ribsam's shoulders went up and down, and he shook like a bowl of
jelly. He seemed to be overcome by the simplicity of the problem over
which his son had been racking his brains.
"Dot makes me laughs. Yaw, yaw, yaw!"
"If you will sit down and figure on it you won't laugh quite so hard,"
said Nick, amused by the jollity of his father, which brought a smile to
his mother; "what is your answer?"
"If I hafs feefty tollar more don you hafs, how mooch less tollar don't

you hafs don I hafs? Yaw, yaw, yaw!"
"That is plain enough," said Nick sturdily "but if you mean to say that
the answer to the problem I gave you is fifty per cent., you are wrong."
"Oxplains how dot ain't," said Mr. Ribsam, suddenly becoming serious.
The mother was also interested, and looked smilingly toward her bright
son. Like every mother, her sympathies went out to him. When Nick
told his father that he was in error, the mother felt a thrill of delight; she
wanted Nick to get the better of her husband, much as she loved both,
and you and I can't blame her.
Nick leaned back in his chair, shoved his hands into his pockets, and
looked smilingly at his father and his pipe as he said:
"Suppose, to illustrate, that Philadelphia has just one hundred people.
Then, if New York has fifty per cent. more, it must have one hundred
and fifty people as its population; that is correct, is it not, father?"
Mr. Ribsam took another puff or two, as if to make sure that his boy
was not leading him into a trap, and then he solemnly nodded his head.
"Dot ish so,--dot am,--yaw."
"Then if Philadelphia has one hundred people for its population, New
York has one hundred and fifty?"
"Yaw, and Pheelatelphy has feefty per cent. less--yaw, yaw, yaw!"
"Hold on, father,--not so fast. I'm teacher just now, and you mustn't run
ahead of me. If you will notice in this problem the per cent. in the first
part is based on Philadelphia's population, while in the second part it is
based on the population of New York, and since the population of the
two cities is different, the per cent. cannot be the same."
"How dot is?" asked Mr. Ribsam, showing eager interest in the
reasoning of the boy.

"We have agreed, to begin with, that the population of Philadelphia is
one hundred and of New York one hundred and fifty. Now, how many
people will have to be subtracted from New York's population to make
it the same as Philadelphia?"
"Feefty,--vot I says."
"And fifty is what part of one hundred and fifty,--that is, what part of
the population of New York?"
"It vos one thirds."
"And one third of anything is thirty-three and one third per cent. of it,
which is the correct answer to the problem."
Mr. Ribsam held his pipe suspended