ys," he went on most rapidly and confusedly, "that what
were dry lands now were once lakes; and what I think is this--these low
hills were once the shores of a lake; this kopje is some of the stones
that were at the bottom, rolled together by the water. But there is
this--How did the water come to make one heap here alone, in the centre
of the plain?" It was a ponderous question; no one volunteered an
answer. "When I was little," said the boy, "I always looked at it and
wondered, and I thought a great giant was buried under it. Now I know
the water must have done it; but how? It is very wonderful. Did one
little stone come first, and stop the others as they rolled?" said the
boy with earnestness, in a low voice, more as speaking to himself than
to them.

"Oh, Waldo, God put the little kopje here," said Em with solemnity.

"But how did he put it here?"

"By wanting."

"But how did the wanting bring it here?"

"Because it did."

The last words were uttered with the air of one who produces a clinching
argument. What effect it had on the questioner was not evident, for he
made no reply, and turned away from her.

Drawing closer to Lyndall's feet, he said after a while in a low voice:

"Lyndall, has it never seemed to you that the stones were talking with
you? Sometimes," he added in a yet lower tone, "I lie under there with
my sheep, and it seems that the stones are really speaking--speaking of
the old things, of the time when the strange fishes and animals lived
that are turned into stone now, and the lakes were here; and then of the
time when the little Bushmen lived here, so small and so ugly, and used
to sleep in the wild dog holes, and in the sloots, and eat snakes, and
shot the bucks with their poisoned arrows. It was one of them, one
of these old wild Bushmen, that painted those," said the boy, nodding
toward the pictures--"one who was different from the rest. He did not
know why, but he wanted to make something beautiful--he wanted to make
something, so he made these. He worked hard, very hard, to find the
juice to make the paint; and then he found this place where the rocks
hang over, and he painted them. To us they are only strange things, that
make us laugh; but to him they were very beautiful."

The children had turned round and looked at the pictures.

"He used to kneel here naked, painting, painting, painting; and he
wondered at the things he made himself," said the boy, rising and moving
his hand