Brother Bonaday, seated with palms crossed over the head of his staff, gazed in an absent-minded way at the water-weeds trailing in the current.
"She's an odd child; curiously shrewd in some ways and curiously innocent in others, and for ever asking questions. She put me a teaser yesterday. She can read pretty well, and I set her to read a chapter of the Bible. By and by she looked up and wanted to know why God lived apart from His wife!"
Brother Copas grunted his amusement.
"Did you tell her?"
"I invented some answer, of course. I don't believe it satisfied her—I am not good at explanation—but she took it quietly, as if she put it aside to think over." "The Athanasian Creed is not easily edited for children.… If she can read, the likelihood is she can also write. Does a girl need to learn much beyond that? No, I am not jesting. It's a question upon which I have never quite made up my mind."
"I had hoped to find you keener," said Brother Bonaday with a small sigh. "Now I see that you will probably laugh at what I am going to confess.… Last night, as I sat a while before going to bed, I found myself hearkening for the sound of her breathing in the next room. After a bit, when a minute or so went by and I could hear nothing, a sort of panic took me that some harm had happened to her: till I could stand it no longer, but picked up the lamp and crept in for a book. There she lay sleeping, healthy and sound, and prettier than you'd ever think.… I crept back to my chair, and a foolish sort of hope came over me that, with her health and wits, and being brought up unlike other children, she might come one day to be a little lady and the pride of the place, in a way of speaking—"
"A sort of Lady Jane Grey, in modest fashion—is that what you mean?" suggested Brother Copas—
'Like Her most gentle, most unfortunate,
Crowned but to die—who in her chamber sate
Musing with Plato, tho' the horn was blown,
And every ear and every heart was won,
And all in green array were chasing down the sun.'
'Like Her most gentle, most unfortunate,
Crowned but to die—who in her chamber sate
Musing with Plato, tho' the horn was blown,
And every ear and every heart was won,
And all in green array were chasing down the sun.'
—"Well, if she's willing, as unofficial godfather I might make a start with the Latin declensions. It would be an experiment: I've never tried teaching a girl. And I never had a child of my own, Brother; but I can understand just what you dreamed, and the Lord punish me if I feel like laughing."