one can do a kindness by being
stupid, perhaps many, out of love for humanity, would affect stupidity.

But Walter did not think of the pleasure of the others--which he
could not have understood. He wept, and was angry at Master Pennewip,
who had taught him no French and no fable.

"Forward, Walter, forward!" insisted the holder of the pawn.

"It needn't be French. Just tell a fable."

"But I don't know what a fable is."

"Oh, it's a story with animals."

"Yes, or with trees! Le chene un jour dit au roseau--don't you see,
you can have one without animals."

"Yes, yes, a fable is just a story--nothing else. You can have in it
anything you want to."

"But it must rhyme!"

Walter was thinking about reciting his robber song, but fortunately
he reconsidered the matter. That would have been scandalous in the
home of the Hallemans, who were so particularly respectable.

"No," cried another, who was again wiser than all the rest, "it needn't
rhyme. The cow gives milk--Jack saw the plums hanging--Prince William
the First was a great thinker. Don't you see, Walter, it's as easy
as rolling off of a log. Go ahead and tell something, or else you
won't get your pawn."

Walter began.

"A little boy died once who was not allowed to go to heaven----"

"Oho! That's the story of Peri. Tell something else."

"I was going to change it," said Walter, embarrassed. "And so the
little boy couldn't enter the heavenly gates, because he didn't know
French, and because he had sometimes been bad, and because he hadn't
learned his lessons, and also because he--because he"----I believe
Walter had something on the end of his tongue about his mother's
box of savings, but he swallowed it, that he might not offend the
Hallemans by any allusion to the peppermint business--"because he
once laughed during prayers. For it is certain, boys, that if you
laugh during prayers you'll never get to heaven."

"So--o-oo?" asked several, conscious of their guilt.

"Yes, they can't go to heaven. Now the boy had had a sister, who died
one year before him. He had loved her a lot, and when he died he began
to hunt for his sister right away. 'Who is your sister?' he was asked."

"Who asked him that?"

"Be still! Don't interrupt him. Let Walter tell his story!"

"I don't know who asked that. The boy said that his little sister
had on a blue dress and had dimples in her cheeks, and----"

"Just like Emma!"

"Yes, exactly like Emma. They told him that