The Eternal Wonder Read Online Free Page B

the tall one explained.
    But he was afraid of Dog and he drew back and put his hands behind his back.
    “Erh—erh—erh,” Dog said.
    “See, Rannie’s dog,” the tall one said.
    He took Rannie’s hand in his and smoothed Dog.
    “Dog,” Rannie said, and was no longer afraid. This was new knowing. Dog had to be examined and his tail pulled. Why a tail?
    “No—no,” the mother said. “Don’t hurt Dog.”
    “Hurt?” Rannie repeated, puzzled.
    She pulled Rannie’s ear sharply. “Hurt, no—no,” she repeated. “See, like this—”
    She smoothed dog gently, and Rannie, after watching, did the same. Suddenly Dog licked his hand. He drew back.
    “Dog—no, no,” he exclaimed.
    The mother laughed. “He likes you—nice dog,” she said.
    DAY BY DAY HE WAS LEARNING new words. He did not know that it was unusual to learn words so early. He was only pleased that his parents laughed and clapped their hands often.
    By the time he came to his second birthday he could even count. He knew that one following one and another and another and each had a name. He learned these names by accident one day with blocks. He put a block on the floor from a box full of blocks.
    “One,” his mother said.
    He took out another and placed it beside the one. “Two,” his mother said.
    And so he proceeded until she had said “Ten.” Here he went back again to one and repeated the names himself. His mother stared at him, then swept him into her arms in joy. When the father came home at dark, she put out the blocks again.
    “Say them, Rannie,” she told him.
    He remembered the names easily, and the two looked at each other in gravity and astonishment.
    “Isn’t he—”
    “It seems so—”
    He said them over again very fast and laughing. “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten!”
    They did not laugh. They looked at each other. Then suddenly the father took some small round objects from his pocket.
    “Pennies,” he said.
    “Pennies,” Rannie repeated. He repeated everything they said to him, remembering afterward which word belonged to each object.
    His father put down one penny on the carpet, where he knelt before Rannie.
    “One penny,” he said distinctly.
    Rannie listened without repeating. It was obvious that this was one penny. His father put down another penny and looked at Rannie.
    “Two,” Rannie said.
    And so on the game went until ten pennies finished it. They looked at each other, the parents.
    “He does understand—he understands numbers,” the father said, astonished.
    “I told you,” the mother retorted.
     
    AFTER THIS, OF COURSE, EVERYTHINGhad to be counted. Apples in a bowl, books on the shelves, plates in the cupboard. But what came beyond ten? He demanded this knowledge of his mother.
    “Ten—ten—ten,” he said impatiently. What came after ten?
    “Eleven—twelve—thirteen—,” his mother said.
    He grasped the idea at once. Counting went on and on. There was no end to it. He counted everything and reached for the innumerable. He began to realize endlessness. Trees in the woods, for example, where they went for picnics—there was no use in counting them once he understood counting, so that it simply became more of the same.
    Money, of course, was different from trees or daisies in a field. By the time he was three he knew that money must be given in exchange for what one wanted. He walked with his mother to the grocery store down the street and he saw her give pieces of metal or paper in return for bread and milk, meat and vegetables and fruit.
    “What is?” he asked when he came home after the first time. He had found her change purse and, opening it, had laid in a row on the kitchen table the varieties of coins within.
    She told him the name of each and he repeated each after her. He never forgot anything he once knew. He asked endless questions and he always remembered the answers. But he did more than remember. He understood the principle. Money was