Through Forest and Fire | Page 6

in one hand while he stared with
open mouth into the smiling face of his son, as though he did not quite
grasp his reasoning.
"Vot you don't laughs at?" he said, turning sharply toward his wife,
who had resumed her knitting and was dropping many a stitch because
of the mirth, which shook her as vigorously as it stirred her husband a
few minutes before.
"I laughs ven some folks dinks dey ain't shmarter don dey vosn't all te
vile, don't it?"
And stopping her knitting she threw back her head and laughed
unrestrainedly. Her husband hastily shoved the stem of his pipe
between his lips, sunk lower down in the chair, and smoked so hard
that his head soon became almost invisible in the vapor.
By-and-by he roused himself and asked Nick to begin with the first
problem and reason out the result he obtained with each one in turn.
Nick did so, and on the last but one his parent tripped him. A few
pointed questions showed the boy that he was wrong. Then the hearty
"Yaw, yaw, yaw!" of the father rang out, and looking at the solemn

visage of his wife, he asked:
"Vy you don't laughs now, eh? Yaw, yaw, yaw!"
The wife meekly answered that she did not see anything to cause mirth,
though Nick proved that he did.
Not only that, but the son became satisfied from the quickness with
which his father detected his error, and the keen reasoning he gave, that
he purposely went wrong on the first problem read to him with the
object of testing the youngster.
Finally, he asked him whether such was not the case. Many persons in
the place of Mr. Ribsam would have been tempted to fib, because
almost every one will admit any charge sooner than that of ignorance;
but the Dutchman considered lying one of the meanest vices of which a
man can be guilty. Like all of his countrymen, he had received a good
school education at home, besides which his mind possessed a natural
mathematical bent. He said he caught the answer to the question the
minute it was asked him, and, although Mr. Layton may not have seen
it before, Mr. Ribsam had met and conquered similar ones when he was
a boy.
While he persistently refused to show Nick how to solve some of the
intricate problems brought home, yet when the son, after hours of labor,
was still all abroad, his father would ask him a question or two so
skillfully framed that the bright boy was quick to detect their bearing
on the subject over which he was puzzling his brain. The parent's query
was like the lantern's flash which shows the ladder for which a man is
groping.
The task of the evening being finished, Mr. Ribsam tested his boy with
a number of problems that were new to him. Most of them were in the
nature of puzzles, with a "catch" hidden somewhere. Nick could not
give the right answer in every instance, but he did so in a majority of
cases; so often, indeed, that his father did a rare thing,--he
complimented his skill and ability.

CHAPTER IV.
LOST.
It was two miles from the home of Mr. Ribsam to the little stone
school-house where his children were receiving their education. A short
distance from the dwelling a branch road turned off to the left, which,
being followed nine miles or so, mostly through woods, brought one to
the little country town of Dunbarton.
Between the home of Gustav Ribsam and the school-house were only
two dwellings. The first, on the left, belonged to Mr. Marston, whose
land adjoined that of the Hollander, while the second was beyond the
fork of the roads and was owned by Mr. Kilgore, who lived a long
distance back from the highway.
Nick Ribsam, as he grew in years and strength, became more valuable
to his father, who found it necessary, now and then, to keep him home
from school. This, however, did not happen frequently, for the parents
were anxious that their children should receive a good school education,
and Nick's readiness enabled him to recover, very quickly, the ground
thus lost.
There was not so much need of Nellie, and, when at the age of six she
began her attendance, she rarely missed a day. If it was stormy she was
bundled up warmly, and, occasionally, she was taken in the carriage
when the weather was too severe for walking.
The summer was gone when Nick helped harness the roan mare to the
carriage, and, driving down to the forks, let Nellie out, and kept on
toward Dunbarton, while the little girl continued ahead in the direction
of the school-house.
"I've got to stay there so long,"