The young Indian started toward the door as at play, and shook his head at the young bear, which was of the harmless kind so well known in the Northwest, and the bear turned and ran, while the Indian followed it toward the wood. The odd event was quite excusable on any ground of rule and propriety in the primitive school.
"It no harm; let it go," said the boy on his return; and the spirit of the incident was good and educational in the hearts of the school.
The charm of his life was Gretchen's violin. It transfigured him; it changed the world to him. His father was a forest philosopher; the boy caught a like spirit, and often said things that were a revelation to Mr. Mann.
"Why do you like the violin so much?" said the latter to him one day.
"It brings to me the thing longed for—the thing I long to know."
"Why, what is that?"
"I can't tell it—I feel it here—I sense it—I shall know—something better—yonder—the thing we long for, but do not know. Don't you long for it? Don't you feel it?"
The tall schoolmaster said "Yes," and was thoughtful. The poor Indian had tried to express that something beyond his self of which he could only now have a dim conception, and about which even science is dumb. Mr. Mann understood it, but he could hardly have expressed it better.
The boy learned the alphabet quickly, and began to demand constant attention in his eagerness to learn. Mr. Mann found that he was giving more than the allotted time to him. To meet the case, he appointed from time to time members of the school "monitors," as he called them, to sit beside him and help him.
One day he asked Gretchen to do this work. The boy was delighted to be instructed by the mistress of the violin, and she was as pleased with the honor of such monitorial duties to the son of a chief. But an unexpected episode grew out of all this mutual good-will and helpful kindness.