But I did
not care. I wanted to learn, and I studied in the railway car, and at
the table, and in bed, and had a teacher when we staid long enough in a
place, and then I plunged in, mistake or no mistake, and talked to
everybody. I used to sit on the box with the driver when we drove, so as
to talk to him, and you have no idea what a lot you pick up that way, or
how glad they are to help you; and now, though I do not suppose I always
use good grammar or get the right accent, I can _parlez_ with the best
of them, and can speak German, too, a little. I think I have improved
some; don't you, auntie."
Of course she did, and she told him so, and smiled fondly upon the
bright, handsome boy, knowing that in what he said of himself there was
neither conceit nor vanity, but a frankness and openness which she liked
to see in him.
"And now for grandpa," he suddenly exclaimed, "he will think I am never
coming."
And before she could stop him he had entered the low, dark room, where,
on the bed, pushed close to the side-wall near the woodshed, and just
where it had stood for thirty years, the old man lay, or rather sat, for
he was bolstered upright, with chair and pillows behind him, his long
white hair parted in the middle and combed behind his ears, and his arms
folded across his bosom.
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