exceedingly self-contained, and would sit and dream at his desk in the
grammar-school, looking out straight in front of him--just at nothing.

The master tried flogging, and the next day found a picture of himself on
the blackboard, his face portrayed as anything but lovely. Young
Rembrandt was sent home to fetch his father. The father came.

"Look at that!" said the irate teacher; "see what your son did; look at
that!"

Mynheer Harmen sat down and looked at the picture in his deliberate Dutch
way, and after about fifteen minutes said, "Well, it does look like you!"

Then he explained to the schoolmaster that the lad was sent to school
because he would not do much around the mill but draw pictures in the
dust, and it was hoped that the schoolmaster could teach him something.

The schoolmaster decided that it was a hopeless case, and the miller went
home to report to the boy's mother.

Now, whenever a Dutchman is confronted by a problem too big to solve, or
a task too unpleasant for him to undertake, he shows his good sense by
turning it over to his wife. "You are his mother, anyway," said Harmen
van Ryn, reproachfully.

The mother simply waived the taunt and asked, "Do you tell me the
schoolmaster says he will not do anything but draw pictures?"

"Not a tap will he do but make pictures--he can not multiply two by one."