“Don’t you think it would be wise for you to take back the Bible to Gerson Brandt?” Everett inquired, walking a few steps to his right, where there was a great tree against which he leaned.
“If the Bible could be found it would not again be put in Gerson Brandt’s hands. It is better that it should be lost forever than that he should see it owned by another man.”
“Why is this Bible so precious to the school-master? Can’t you tell me, Hans Peter? Perhaps I may help you to restore it to him. You see, I might buy it and give it back to Gerson Brandt.”
“No man in Zanah can own anything. If the Bible should be given to Gerson Brandt it would still belong to the colony, and it could be sold again.” The simple one had thrown himself upon the ground, and, with chin in his hands and elbows dug deeply in the earth, he appeared to be thinking.
“Tell me about the Bible,” urged Everett, and he waited as impatiently for the village fool to speak as if some matter of tremendous importance to him, the man of affairs out in the great world, hung in the balance. There was something almost absurd in the contrast between the two who talked there in the summer afternoon. Stephen Everett was a man to be noticed anywhere. It was not altogether his physical beauty that invariably commanded attention; he had an unusual charm of personality.
Hans Peter, with his long, straight tow hair tangled upon his big, round head, kicked his earth-stained feet in the air as he lay at length upon the ground. His blue cotton shirt, torn down the back, revealed a strip of white skin, and his baggy trousers were held by the one button which attached them to a knitted suspender. The pocket in the back of his trousers bulged with one of the gourds that he carried with him wherever he went.
“I am waiting for you to tell me about the Bible,” Everett remarked, when he had smoked half of his cigar.
Hans Peter reached back and removed the gourd from his pocket. Then, sitting up, he began to examine it carefully.
“It was long ago that it came to Hans Peter one day, as he watched Gerson Brandt at work with his bright inks, that the school-master’s thoughts were on Walda Kellar as he made the gay letters in the great book. Lest the fool might forget, he marked on his gourd some lines to make him remember. Many times after that he saw that the school-master was praying for her who would be inspired. Hans Peter knew that the Bible was for Walda Kellar, and that the school-master meant it for her to read every day when she should become an instrument of the Lord. That is why Gerson Brandt loved the Bible. That is why no other man should have it.”
Everett left his place at the tree, and, pacing back and forth, pondered for a few moments upon the information that the simple one had given him.