"Ach, well," she said, comfortably, "we will see. We will do our best—yes, of a certainty. And we will see." She strolled away after this oracular utterance, and Miss Clarkson went to breakfast. Thus neither witnessed a scene taking place at that moment on the lawn near the front veranda. Standing there with his back against a pillar, surrounded by the other children of the community, was Ivan Ivanovitch. In the foreground, facing him, stood Augustus Adolphus, addressing the new-comer in firm accents, and emphasizing his remarks by waving a grimy forefinger before Ivan Ivanovitch's uninterested face. The high, positive tones of Augustus Adolphus filled the air.
"Well, then, why don't you do it?" he was asking, fiercely. "You got to do it! You have to! Fraulein says so. The rest of us has to do ours. I filled my wood-boxes already, and Josie watered the flowers. We did it early so we could watch you being a sunbeam, and now you ain't being one. Why ain't you? You got to! Why don't you begin?" The continued unresponsiveness of Ivan Ivanovitch irritated him at this point, and he turned excitedly to the others for support.
"'Ain't he got to?" he cried. "'Ain't he got to be a sunbeam? Fraulein said he should begin this morning. Well, then, why don't he begin?"
A childish buzz of corroboration answered him. It was plain that the assignment of Ivan's mission, publicly made as it had been the night before, had deeply impressed the children of the community. They closed around the two boys. The small Josephine laid a propelling hand upon Ivan's shoulder and tried to push him forward, with a vague idea of thus accelerating his task.
"Begin now," she suggested, encouragingly. "Do it, and have it over.
That's the way I do."
In response to this maiden appeal the lips of Ivan Ivanovitch parted.
"I do not know how to do it," he announced, distinctly. "How shall I do it?"
Augustus Adolphus broke in again. "Aw, say, go on," he urged. "You got to do it! Why don't you, then?"
Ivan Ivanovitch turned upon him an eye in which the habitual expression of patience was merely intensified.
"I do not know how to do it," he said again, speaking slowly and painstakingly. "You tell me how; then I will do it."