Chapter 4

It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in

gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest. Also, there

was a pleasant change; many people called at the house to congratulate

him, and a number of cool old friends became kind and friendly again;

and, to top all, Marget was invited to a party.

And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole circumstance just

as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the

plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see.

One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked more like

the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess for

ignorant people like that. Some came slyly buzzing around and tried

to coax us boys to come out and “tell the truth;” and promised they

wouldn't ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction,

because the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the

secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something

that would answer--but we couldn't; we hadn't the ingenuity, so we had

to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.

We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the other one,

the big one, the splendid one, burned the very vitals of us, it was so

hot to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with

it. But we had to keep it in; in fact, it kept itself in. Satan said

it would, and it did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the

woods so that we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only

subject we thought of or cared anything about; and day and night we

watched for him and hoped he would come, and we got more and more

impatient all the time. We hadn't any interest in the other boys any

more, and wouldn't take part in their games and enterprises. They seemed

so tame, after Satan; and their doings so trifling and commonplace after

his adventures in antiquity and the constellations, and his miracles and

meltings and explosions, and all that.

During the first day we were in a state of anxiety on account of one

thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or

another to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid

it would crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did--But it

didn't. At the end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so

after that we were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the

anxiety out of our minds.

There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter, and finally

we went there the second evening, a little diffidently, after drawing

straws, and I asked it as casually as I could, though it did not sound

as casual as I wanted, because I didn't know how:

“What is the Moral Sense, sir?”

He looked down, surprised, over his great spectacles, and said, “Why, it

is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil.”

It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disappointed,

also to some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on, so, in

default of anything else to say, I asked, “Is it valuable?”

“Valuable? Heavens! lad, it is the one thing that lifts man above the

beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!”

This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out, with

the other boys, and we went away with that indefinite sense you have

often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but

I was tired.

We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at the spinnet

teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and an

influential one, too; the others would follow. Marget jumped up and

ran and thanked us again, with tears in her eyes--this was the third

time--for saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street,

and we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never

could be grateful enough for anything a person did for her; so we let

her have her say. And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm

Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of

the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the

river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer,

and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little.

He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along

with the others, but had stood his ground all through. His faithfulness

was not lost on Marget and her uncle. He hadn't so very much talent, but

he was handsome and good, and these are a kind of talents themselves and

help along. He asked us how the lesson was getting along, and we told

him it was about done. And maybe it was so; we didn't know anything

about it, but we judged it would please him, and it did, and didn't cost

us anything.