Half a dozen boys

by Anna Chapin Ray

"Well, Fred, what do you say to our starting on our lessons to-morrow?"

"What do you mean, Miss Bess?" said the boy, sitting up.

"Only just this, that I think it is time you went back and took up a few lessons again."

Fred rose to his feet and began to walk slowly up and down the room.

"How can I?" he asked sadly. "I don't see how I can study any more."

"This way, Fred," said Bess, as, putting down the dog, she went to join him in his march; "from nine till twelve every day, I have time to give up to it. We will shut ourselves up in a corner by ourselves, and I will read your lessons over to you a few times, and then ask you questions about them. You can do ever so much in that way; and we don't want you to stop all study, even if you can't read to yourself. How does the idea strike you?"

"I like it," said the boy, whose face had been brightening again; "only it won't be much fun for you."

"Never you mind about me, my laddie," said Bess cheerfully, "I will look out for myself."

And so it came about that for two or three hours each morning, while Mrs. Carter was busy about the household cares that not even her delicate health had made her willing to resign to her daughter, Bess and the boy settled themselves in the library, where Bess read aloud to the child, explaining as she read, and he listened eagerly, delighted at being able to break away from his forced inaction. Bess found him an apt pupil, and added to their other studies many simple lessons in the natural sciences, teaching the boy to understand the world around him, as well as to see it through her eyes. As college was out of the question for the lad, she tried to teach him just those facts that would be of the most interest and use to him, throwing aside any formal "course" of study, and only endeavoring to answer the questions that came up in the course of their readings. And such questions! Any young, healthy boy of ordinary intelligence can ask a surprising and perplexing number of questions; but Fred, shut up within himself as he was, with plenty of time for quiet thought, surpassed them all, and often sent his tutor on a wild search through encyclopædias and dictionaries, for a clear explanation of some knotty point.

All this time Rob had been very neighborly, for it had always been his habit to run in to see his cousin nearly every day; and for some time after Fred came the two boys were on most harmonious terms. In spite of everything, Rob was jealous of Fred, and would gladly have changed places with him for the next year; but he kept this feeling to himself, with an instinctive fear that it might make cousin Bess feel badly.