Part 13 (1/2)
Meanwhile, as Fate willed it, the dripping Ha.s.san was handed ash.o.r.e precisely at that point of the esplanade where stood his father and mother! They had not seen the accident, nor understood that it was a boy who had fallen in and been rescued by a bird; so when a wet little object was set to drip almost at their feet, and they recognized in it their own offspring, whom they supposed to be safely asleep at home, it will be easily imagined that their wrath and astonishment knew no bounds.
”Ahi! child of sin, contaminated by the unbeliever, is it indeed thou?”
cried the irate Mustapha. ”What djinnee, what imp of Eblis hath brought thee here?”
”He hath been in the water, Allah preserve us!” cried the more tender-hearted mother. ”He might have been drowned.”
”In the water! Nay, then; wherefore is he not in bed where we left him?
We will see if this imp of evil be not taught to avoid the water in the future. On my head be it if he is not, Inshallah!”
So the weeping Ha.s.san was led home by his family, his garments leaving a trail of drip on the concrete all the way up the long distance; and in the seclusion of the temporary harem he was caused to see the error of his way.
”Thou shalt be made to remember,” declared his irate parent in the pauses of discipline. ”I will not have thee as the sons of these infidels who despise correction, saying 'I will' and 'I will not,' and are as a blemish and a darkening to the faces of their parents. The Prophet rebuke me if I do! Inshallah!”
But Coco, when the lights were put out and the great crowd streamed away, leaving the Fair Grounds to silence and loneliness, and the lagoons became again a soft land of shadows broken by reaches of moonlight, sailed back to his perch among the sedges with a calm and satisfied mind. He had a right to be pleased with himself. Had he not saved two ”people,” one very small and hard, and the other very big and soft? Nothing whispered of that dreadful half-dollar which was coming on the morrow to vex his spirit. No one said to _him_ ”Inshallah.” He tucked his head under his wing and went to sleep, a peaceful and contented flamingo; and the moral is, ”Be virtuous and you will be happy.”
TWO PAIRS OF EYES.
Did it ever occur to you what a difference there is in the way in which people use their eyes? I do not mean that some people squint, and some do not; that some have short sight, and some long sight. These are accidental differences; and the people who cannot see far, sometimes see more, and more truly, than do other people whose vision is as keen as the eagle's. No, the difference between people's eyes lies in the power and the habit of observation.
Did you ever hear of the famous conjurer Robert Houdin, whose wonderful tricks and feats of magic were the astonishment of Europe a few years ago? He tells us, in his autobiography, that to see everything at a glance, while seeming to see nothing, is the first requisite in the education of a ”magician,” and that the faculty of noticing rapidly and exactly can be trained like any other faculty. When he was fitting his little son to follow the same profession, he used to take him past a shop-window, at a quick walk, and then ask him how many objects in the window he could remember and describe. At first, the child could only recollect three or four; but gradually he rose to ten, twelve, twenty, and, in the end, his eyes would note, and his memory retain, not less than forty articles, all caught in the few seconds which it took to pa.s.s the window at a rapid walk.
It is so more or less with us all. Few things are more surprising than the distinct picture which one mind will bring away from a place, and the vague and blurred one which another mind will bring. Observation is one of the valuable faculties, and the lack of it a fault which people have to pay for, in various ways, all their lives.
There were once two peasant boys in France, whose names were Jean and Louis Cardilliac. They were cousins; their mothers were both widows, and they lived close to each other in a little village, near a great forest.
They also looked much alike. Both had dark, closely shaven hair, olive skins, and large, black eyes; but in spite of all their resemblances, Jean was always spoken of as ”lucky,” and Louis as ”unlucky,” for reasons which you will shortly see.
If the two boys were out together, in the forest or the fields, they walked along quite differently. Louis dawdled in a sort of loose-jointed trot, with his eyes fixed on whatever happened to be in his hand,--a sling, perhaps, or a stick, or one of those snappers with which birds are scared away from fruit. If it were the stick, he cracked it as he went, or he snapped the snapper, and he whistled, as he did so, in an absent-minded way. Jean's black eyes, on the contrary, were always on the alert, and making discoveries. While Louis stared and puckered his lips up over the snapper or the sling, Jean would note, unconsciously but truly, the form of the clouds, the look of the sky in the rainy west, the wedge-shaped procession of the ducks through the air, and the way in which they used their wings, the bird-calls in the hedge. He was quick to mark a strange leaf, or an unaccustomed fungus by the path, or any small article which had been dropped by the way. Once, he picked up a five-franc piece; once, a silver pencil-case which belonged to the _cure_, who was glad to get it again, and gave Jean ten sous by way of reward. Louis would have liked ten sous very much, but somehow he never found any pencil-cases; and it seemed hard and unjust when his mother upbraided him for the fact, which, to his thinking, was rather his misfortune than his fault.
”How can I help it?” he asked. ”The saints are kind to Jean, and they are not kind to me,--_voila tout_!”
”The saints help those who help themselves,” retorted his mother. ”Thou art a look-in-the-air. Jean keeps his eyes open, he has wit, and he notices.”
But such reproaches did not help Louis, or teach him anything. Habit is so strong.
”There!” cried his mother one day, when he came in to supper. ”Thy cousin--thy lucky cousin--has again been lucky. He has found a truffle-bed, and thy aunt has sold the truffles to the man from Paris for a hundred francs. A hundred francs! It will be long before thy stupid fingers can earn the half of that!”
”Where did Jean find the bed?” asked Louis.
”In the oak copse near the brook, where thou mightest have found them as easily as he,” retorted his mother. ”He was walking along with Daudot, the wood cutter's dog--whose mother was a truffle-hunter--and Daudot began to point and scratch; and Jean suspected something, got a spade, dug, and crack! a hundred francs! Ah, _his_ mother is to be envied!”
”The oak copse! Near the brook!” exclaimed Louis, too much excited to note the reproach which concluded the sentence. ”Why, I was there but the other day with Daudot, and I remember now, he scratched and whined a great deal, and tore at the ground. I didn't think anything about it at the time.”
”Oh, thou little imbecile--thou stupid!” cried his mother, angrily.
”There were the truffles, and the first chance was for thee. Didn't think anything about it! Thou never dost think, thou never wilt. Out of my sight, and do not let me see thee again till bedtime.”
Supperless and disconsolate poor Louis slunk away. He called Daudot, and went to the oak copse, resolved that if he saw any sign of excitement on the part of the dog, to fetch a spade and instantly begin to dig. But Daudot trotted along quietly, as if there were not a truffle left in France, and the walk was fruitless.