Though he was faint from the effects of the narcotic, and from fasting for a long time, he refused food, and continued to sob, begging the old woman to let him go home, but she only answered, “you are dreaming still, or crazy.” Then she told him how sometimes people were bewitched, and did not know themselves.
“Still, I am Paul, let me go.” At last the woman, losing all patience, called the dwarf to beat him, if he did not stop crying and begin to eat. So terror and hunger at last conquered, and the little boy, choking down his sobs, sat upon a stool in silence, to eat his supper, very desolate and leaden hearted.
From that day a new era commenced in the history of the child. An era of servitude, sorrow, and tears, that washed away so far into the past the memory of his free and joyous childhood, that he began to believe what the woman so often told him, that his mind had gone astray, that he had been bewitched.
Sometimes he would stand looking long into the great mirror, at the stiff, red hairs and brown skin of poor Crimson Tuft, thinking what a beautiful myth it was, about the happy little Paul, and the dear mother. How it had stolen into his heart like a real life, and still the señora, as all about the house called her, said it was only a bewildering dream.
Into his eyes he would often look, saying, “Those are Paul’s eyes, but the red brows give a different expression to their sadness,” he would add, “No! no! they are not Paul’s eyes.”
Always the red hair, brown skin and sorrowful heart, “I must be only poor Crimson Tuft.”
Very often his hungry heart would cry out, “Oh, mother! mother!”
Too often the shrill voice of the old woman would be the discordant answer, sending him to some new task.
As months, then years, rolled by, the child became more accustomed to his sorrowful lot, and in many ways it grew pleasanter. He learned to talk Spanish fluently, and became very fond of the queer looking dwarf, who had frightened him so much at first. He often talked to him about his mysterious change, but of these things the dwarf would never speak, so at last Crimson Tuft ceased to mention them.
His kind-hearted friend taught him many things in leisure hours—to read, write, and solve difficult problems—so that at twelve, he was as much advanced in his studies as most boys of his age.