"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."
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 of the other half.
His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched from a hen's egg,
and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black sheep
and a crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony
had more useless information than any boy in the village.
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