As he grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony Croft was
by general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. That he
was lazy in certain matters merely because he was in a frenzy of
industry to pursue certain others had nothing to do with the case, of
course.
If any one had ever given him a task in which he could have seen
cause working to effect, in which he could have found by personal
experiment a single fact that belonged to him, his own by divine
right of discovery, he would have counted labour or study all joy.
He was one incarnate Why and How; one brooding wonder and
interrogation point. "Why does the sun drive away the stars? Why do
the leaves turn red and gold? What makes the seed swell in the
earth? From whence comes the life hidden in the egg under the bird's
breast? What holds the moon in the sky? Who regulates her shining?
Who moves the wind? Who made me, and what am I? Who, why, how,
whither? If I came from God but only lately, teach me his lessons
first, put me into vital relation with life and law, and then give me
your dead signs and equivalents for real things, that I may learn
more and more, and ever more and ever more." These were the
questions his eager soul was always asking of the outer world.
There was no spirit in Edgewood bold enough to conceive that Tony
learned anything in the woods, but as there was never sufficient
school money to keep the village seat of learning open more than half
the year, the boy educated himself at the fountain head of wisdom and
knowledge the other half.
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