back. He liked to lie on his stomach
close to the wall and look out at the garden with its riotous mass of
flowers and the insects that flew among them. Some flew quickly, their
wings moving so fast that they were just blurs. Others flew slowly,
swooping on outspread bright-colored wings from petal to petal. He liked
these slow-flying ones the best. He could wiggle his shoulder blades in
time with their wings and pretend that he was flying too.

Sometimes other children came by on the outside of the wall. He could
look out at them without worrying, because they couldn't see him. The
wall wasn't transparent from the outside. He liked it when three or four
of them came by together, laughing and chasing each other through the
garden. Usually, though, they didn't stay long. After they had played a
few minutes his father or his mother went out and looked at them, and
then they went away.

Eric was playing by himself when the old man came out to the sunporch
doorway and stood there, saying nothing, making no effort to interrupt
or to speak. He was so quiet that after a while Eric almost didn't mind
his being there.

The old man turned back to Myron and Gwin.

"Of course the boy can learn. He's not stupid."

Eric bounced the ball, flung it against the transparent glass, caught
it, bounced it again.

"But how, Walden?" Gwin shook her head. "You offer to teach him, but--"

Walden smiled. "Remember _these_?"

_... Walden's study. The familiar curtains drawn aside, and the shelves
behind them. The rows of bright-backed, box-like objects, most of them
old and spotted, quite unhygienic ..._

Gwin shook her head at the perception, but Myron nodded.

"Books. I didn't know there were any outside the museums."

Walden smiled again. "Only mine. Books are fascinating things. All the
knowledge of a race, gathered together on a few shelves...."

"Knowledge?" Myron shrugged. "Imagine storing knowledge in those--boxes.
What are they? What's in them? Just words...."

The books faded as Walden sighed. "You'd be surprised what the old race
did, with just those--boxes."

He looked across at Eric, who was now bouncing his ball and counting,
out loud, up to three, and then going back and starting again.

"The boy can learn what's in those books. Just as if he'd gone to school
back in the old times."

Myron and Gwin looked doubtfully at each other, and then over at the
corner where Eric played unheeding. Perhaps Walden could help.