“ ‘Little glass boxes
That sometimes leak,
But open and shut
Without a squeak.’ ”
Pilarica promptly pointed her two forefingers at her still tearful eyes.
“That is easy,” she said, slipping to her knees upon the ground and leaning against the end of the bench. “Please tell me one, a bad, rude one, about a needle. I do hate needles so.”
Grandfather did not have to think long, for he was the wisest man in Spain, as all the children on the Alhambra hill would have told you, and he knew more rhymes and riddles than all the professors in all the universities and all the preachers in all the pulpits put together. So presently he began to repeat in the soft, singsong tone that always soothed Pilarica like the murmur of running water:
“ ‘I have only one eye, like the beggar who sits
In the great church porch at Cadiz;
My temper is sharp, and yet I am
A favorite with the ladies.’
Will this do?” he asked. “For there is another, and I see that just now the needle is no favorite at all with my little lady here.”
“I would like, please, to hear the other,” replied Pilarica promptly, for surely one could not know too many riddles, especially about anything so vexatious as a needle.
And Grandfather, after letting his fingers wander for a minute over the strings of the guitar to refresh his memory, chanted this other:
“ ‘I’m little, but do me no wrong,
For my temper is sharp and spry;
I’m not a man, but my beard is long,
And it grows right out of my eye.
I’m as small as a spear of wheat in spring,
And yet it is I who dress the King.’ ”
“One more, dear Grandfather, if you will do me the favor,” coaxed the child.