Little Tom

by Václav Tille

Tom offered to read some of it to her and taking up the sheet, read it with much expression. In spite of this, the Godmother shook her head. »You read very nicely what you yourself have written,« she said, »but you must learn human letters as well, so that you can read and study our books.«

Therefore, she brought her book to the table, and reached for Little Tom to place him upon it, but he was nowhere to be seen. She looked all about and finally spied him clinging desperately to the table cloth. The wind caused by turning the leaves had blown him over to the very edge of the table and he had barely saved himself. He was calling for help when his Godmother rescued him from his perilous position. So it nearly happened that, at the very outset, a misfortune might have prevented the reading altogether; but, as soon as he had recovered from his fright, Tom offered at once to begin.

He crawled quickly up the golden edge of the book and surveyed the broad white plain covered in every direction, with curving black lines. He ran at once to the upper left hand corner, stepping gingerly on the first large letter. After he had walked all over it, he stopped and declared confidently that it was a capital »O«. In like manner he went on to »N« and »C« and »E« and a little further, until he had no longer to run completely over a letter but could place himself in the middle and looking all about him could tell at once what it was. One after the other he spelled and his Godmother was surprised to see how quickly the reading progressed.

It was only when he came to the end of the page that he found difficulty, for then he had to crawl down while she turned the page over; but he thought of a way to get around this. When he had reached the end of the next page he procured one of his long spears and crawling a little way down the sloping edge of the opened book, thrust his spear between the leaves and raised the sheet high enough to crawl under it. Then, on his hands and knees, he worked his way to the middle of the book and exerting all his strength, he was able to turn the page over.

In a short time, he learned to read so rapidly that he could run swiftly along the lines and in this way could cover five or six pages in a day. He liked especially to linger by the pictures, looking at the little knights gazing from the battlements of the castle, or the beautiful ladies spinning or embroidering in great rooms; for it seemed to him that these were pictures of his former life and reminded him of his lost realm. But, after a moment, he would diligently continue his reading.

He was very curious to discover what real people know, so that he also might learn; but it seemed to him that he would never be able to read fast enough, and so he began to ask his Godmother to teach him from her own knowledge. She soon perceived that in some things, like mathematics and physics, he was much better educated than herself; but of other subjects, such as history and geography, he knew nothing at all.

So she told him how the earth was shaped and about the sun, moon and stars. She explained how the sun rose in the East and then there was day; and after it had crossed the sky and set in the West, then night came. She told him that in the Far North there is perpetual snow on great, white plains, so broad that you can not see across them; and in the South great deserts of sand, without water, where lions and tigers roam and it is so hot that the people become black like the king in the altar. Between all the countries stretch seas of salt water, which are filled with strange monsters and across which travel large ships.

Little Tom listened breathlessly, and then was eager to learn how people came to know all these things. His Godmother told him that there were famous travelers who went all over the earth, experiencing many dangers, and then came home to describe what they had seen.