"What do you mean?" he asked at last.

"Why," said Tip, in a despairing tone, "it says 'stood him in' in the
arithmetic,--the sheep stood him in two dollars apiece,--and I don't see
any sense to it."

"Oh!" said Mr. Lewis; "I see what you mean;" then he went back to his
long-ago deserted carpenter's shop.

"Why, Tip, if I had ten pounds of nails, and they were worth eight
cents a pound, they would stand me just so much,--that is, they would be
worth that to me; and if I should sell them I'd get so much for them.
Don't you see?"

Light began to dawn on Tip's mind.

"Then it means," he said, "that the man didn't sell his sixteen sheep; he
just counted them worth two dollars apiece. Yes, I see; if that's it,
I'll try it." And he rushed to his work again.

And Tip will never forget the eagerness with which he presently turned to
the answer in his arithmetic, and from that back to the one on the slate,
nor the way in which the blood bounded through his veins when he found
that they agreed perfectly.

"It's exactly it," he called out to his father, in a hearty, grateful
voice. "I've got it, and I've been at work on it this whole morning."

Ellis Holbrook, about that time, conquered a most puzzling example in
algebra; but he felt not prouder than did Tip.