What was the winter's thraldom from which Happy Moses had escaped, I
never learned. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, six feet in height, with
a beard like flax, and a sunny, ingenuous countenance. What term should
have been applied to his eccentricities in politer circles I cannot say,
but in Wallencamp, he was artlessly designated as "the fool." Whether it
was on this account, that with a certain rashness of perception peculiar
to the Wallencampers, they always prefixed the adjective "happy" to his
name, or merely on account of the transparent sunniness of his
disposition, I cannot say, either.
Happy Moses played with the children. He regarded me, as one of the class
of those who presume to teach, with mingled scorn and aversion. When I
went to the door to blow the children in from their play, he invariably
turned his back upon me, cocked his hat on one side of his head, and
walked away with an air that was palpably reckless, defiant, and jaunty.
When he reappeared, it was usually with his knitting-work, to which he
devoted himself in a desultory way, reclining on the school-house steps.
But sometimes he sat on the fence with the owl, and then it was
noticeable that while the gaze of the one was transient and silly, the
gaze of the other seemed to grow the more unutterably searching and
profound.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293