He would sit near a beehive for hours without moving,
or lie prone in the sandy road, under the full glare of
the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy;
sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the comedy
might not be turned into a tragedy by a careless footfall.
The cottage on the river road grew more and more
to resemble a museum and herbarium as the years went by,
and the Widow Croft's weekly house-cleaning was a matter
that called for the exercise of Christian grace.
Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, considerate, and obedient.
His mother had no idea that he would ever be able, or indeed willing,
to make a living; but there was a forest of young timber growing up,
a small hay farm to depend upon, and a little hoard that would keep him
out of the poorhouse when she died and left him to his own devices.
It never occurred to her that he was in any way remarkable.
If he were difficult to understand, it reflected more upon his eccentricity
than upon her density. What was a woman to do with a boy of twelve who,
when she urged him to drop the old guitar he was taking apart and hurry off
to school, cried, "Oh, mother! when there is so much to learn in this world,
it is wicked, wicked to waste time in school.
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