boy's best teacher--though you would
not have thought it--was Nat, who could not write, and hardly read.

Even in towns the servants of a household may be called the "lesser
Fates" of the family. In a village this is doubly the case, for the
whole house is there a community of labor and repose. When in such
close contact with their employers, bad servants become insupportable
and are not long retained: one, therefore, who is good enough to be a
servant of the family is generally good enough to be intrusted with the
company and unconscious education of the children. Nat, at all events,
was safe enough. In the crib and on the hay-loft he would erect his
professional chair, answer the eager questions of his pupil or tell him
wonderful stories.

Nat liked to be with the animals on which he waited; yet, though he
could speak to them, and though the dun horse at least was as sensible
as a man, they could not give a satisfactory answer to what was told
them. Ivo, on the contrary, was always able and willing to clap his
hands and say, "Oh, my!" So Nat was never tired of Ivo's company. As a
colt runs by the side of the horse, bounding and frisking, so did Ivo
skip around Nat wherever he went.

Sometimes they would sit quietly together on the straw, Nat telling the
story of Firnut Pete, of the juniper-king, or of the charmed lady of
Isenberg; while the muffled noise of the feeding horses and cows
accompanied the story with a mysterious undertone. Firnut Pete--who
wantonly pulled the crests from the young firs while they were still
bleeding--is doomed, as a restless ghost, to haunt the heath of
Eglesthal; and the juniper-king has one gray and one black eye, which
exchange their colors every year. These stories Nat had to tell again
and again; for children are not so spoiled as to be always craving for
something new.

But these repetitions gave Nat some trouble; for as often as he had
forgotten a little of the story, or wished to tell it in a different
way, Ivo would say, "Why, that isn't the way it was." Nat would take
him on his lap, saying, "You're right: I didn't exactly remember.
There's a good many other things in my head, you see." Then Ivo would
tell the rest of the story with great interest, so that Nat was
delighted at the aptness of his pupil.

Often, also, they would speak of the fortunes of life, and things of
which children brought up in towns have little idea or knowledge until
they grow older,--of poverty and