One winter morning Alfonso was reluctant to take his usual cold bath and stubbornly remained in bed. His nurses made appeal after appeal to him, but his Majesty remained obdurate. Finally, in despair, the nurse went to his mother the Queen Regent.
“You must take your bath, Baby,” said the Queen, coming to his bedside.
The baby king gave no answer.
“If I tell you to do it, you will—won’t you?”
Again no response.
“Very well, then,” continued the Queen, “I will not ask you again, but I shall go to my room and cry because you will not obey me. Do you wish that?”
“No, no, mamma,” cried the young Alfonso, and flinging aside the bed clothes he sprang from the bed and took his cold plunge.
King Alfonso was brought up in this atmosphere of love and affection and it is doubtless owing to this that his own nature is so warm and lovable to-day.
When he was four years old, he fell very ill. His anxious mother watched constantly by his bedside. One day, he turned his little face toward where she was sitting and said: “Are you not very tired, mother mine? Do you love me so very much? Do go to bed. You must be so tired. I think I ought to send you away.”
Not until he was seven years of age did he begin any regular course of studies and then he began with only one hour a day. In a short time, however, he had learned to read and write easily. Much of his boyhood was spent at the beautiful Miramar palace. After he had learned to read and write, the study of geography and history came next and a little later French and Latin. From all accounts, the boy Alfonso was quite as full of mischief and capers as are most small boys.