“Some people find children very much alike,” answered Herr Adler with a smile. “I had a dear old friend, a professor, who married rather late in life. He had some dear little children, but his wife thought that their noise would trouble him, so she kept them very much in the nursery, and when they came down to see papa, they were as still and quiet as so many little mice. The professor was very absent and very short-sighted, and often up in the clouds, as we say; but all the same he had a very tender heart, and would have liked to see more of his children, only, somehow, they never seemed to be there. One day he was walking up and down in some public gardens belonging to the row of houses where he lived. He very seldom went there, but to-day he had gone in, and by-and-by he saw some children at play, and grew interested in them and talked kindly to them, and even joined in their game. And when he went away he saw one little girl looking up with a very sweet and half-wistful smile into his face, and he bent down to kiss her, and said, ‘Well, my little darling, whose little girl are you?’ and she cried out, ‘Yours, papa!’—and sure enough it was his own little girls, as well as some others, with whom he had been playing, and he had never known them in their hats and coats, laughing and chatting as they never did at home. That was a funnier thing than for people not to know little puppy dogs one from the other!”
“What a funny man!” cried Squib. “Didn’t he laugh when he found out?”
“I dare say he did, and perhaps after that he played more with his children, and taught them not to be afraid of him. But when people are absent and forgetful they do very funny things. I heard of an officer once who rode into his stable-yard and called out angrily to his men, ‘I can’t find my horse anywhere! What have you fellows done with him? Go and bring him out to me at once!”
“And he was on his back all the time!” cried Squib with a hearty laugh of delight. “Oh, I like that story; it’s better than the people who hunt everywhere for their spectacles when they are on their noses all the time! You must tell Seppi about that. I am sure it would make him laugh too.”
Seppi’s face was beaming with pleasure by the time Herr Adler reached the knoll. It was a very beautiful day of early summer. The air was so clear and fresh that the heat of the sun was not overpowering, and everything seemed full of joy and happiness. Squib did not know which looked the most beautiful—the great white mountains towering into the clear blue sky, or the dark-green pines with their ruddy stems, or the green slopes where the goats browsed and frisked, or the glimpses of tossing, foaming water dashing along below them in its rocky bed. Everything was so beautiful, he thought; and it seemed more beautiful than ever to-day because Herr Adler was there to see it too, and he pointed out such a number of things that Squib had never noticed before, and told such wonderful stories about the things that grew in the fields and the creatures that lived in the woods, even about the rocks and the stones, the ice and the snow, till Squib, drawing a long breath, would exclaim,—
“O sir, how wonderful everything is! I wish I knew as much as you. It makes everything so interesting.”
“You can know a very great deal more than I ever shall do, my little friend, and yet feel only how very, very little you have learned. But you are quite right. Everything in the world is full of interest—wonderful interest. Everything can teach us new lessons. Everything speaks to us a beautiful language, if we will only listen and be willing to learn. But learning is often a slow and tedious process; and sometimes we throw down our books with disgust, and say, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with all this stupid stuff!’ and we turn to something else to see if that will be more interesting. But that isn’t the spirit in which to learn.”
Squib’s face had turned suddenly red.
“O sir” he said, “how did you know?”
At that question Herr Adler smiled; and Squib went on speaking quickly, but with an honest wish to be truthful,—