My father had laughed. “It is. But it’s true. Though you can read about how to do things, too.”

“What about learning things from people who don’t know how to write?” Like some of the others on Echo Mountain. Like babies. Like dogs. “And what if someone doesn’t know how to read? That takes lessons.”

“Everything takes lessons,” my father said. “Though some you’ll give to yourself.” And my father had been right. Sometimes I was my own best teacher. He taught me how to make tinder and how to strike the flint with my knife and how to coax a flame, but in the end, I had to do that work myself before I truly learned how.

“How come we don’t use matches anymore?” I had asked him.

I remember him sighing. “Same reason we built our own cabin and grow our own food now. Matches cost money, Ellie. And the nearest mercantile is a world away.”

So I had practiced with the flint until I had blisters, but it had still taken me a very long time before I could start a fire. The day I first made one without any help was a very fine day indeed.

“Look here,” I said to Samuel as he sat on the log and I cleared some ground near his feet. From my pack I took what looked like a bird’s nest: a ball of oak bark I’d shredded into coarse wood-thread and molded into shape. I carried one with me always, usually several in the bottom of my pack.

“This is your tinder,” I told him, setting the little nest aside. “Which you can make yourself from threads of dead bark or dry grass as long as it’s very fine.” Then I gathered small twigs and built a tiny pyramid, just big enough to hold some dried leaves with room left over for the nest of bark thread.

Then I scraped the flint hard and strong with my knife until sparks flew into the tinder and then caught, suddenly, making a small flame that I blew on gently, gently, until it strengthened. I quickly slid the burning tinder among the twigs, which caught, making a stronger flame. Before long, the fire was burning well enough to add more sticks and finally a big one I would use as a torch.

Samuel watched it all in silence, with round eyes, and I felt at least ten feet tall.

“Who taught you to do that?” he said, his face serious.

“Daddy did.” I blew on the flames and fed them with dry leaves to make sure the torch was well and truly engulfed.

“Why didn’t he teach me?” Samuel looked so small that I nearly scooped him up into my arms.

“He will. Soon.”

I did not say Or I will. Our father would do it. He would.