For twenty years my father sat prisoner at a desk, unbeautifully and doggedly driving his pen across countless pages that he might be able to buy me wisdom. With all his years of sacrifice and my years of laborious study, he gave me nothing which was half so valuable as that which a boy of nine stole for himself in his ignorance in the forest. There I learnt that the sound of wind in trees is the finest music in the world; that the power to feel in one’s own body the wholesome beauties of nature is more rewarding than wealth; that to know how to abandon oneself to the simple kindness of living people is a wiser knowledge than all the elaborate and codified wisdom of the dead. We roamed the countryside with Lilith by day, listening to her telling fortunes. By night we slept in her arms in the tent. Only one thing was forbidden us--to speak with strangers. But there was one man who recognized us in spite of that. It was on the first morning. We were sitting by the side of the road with the fierce man; he was showing us how to make a snare for a rabbit. We were so interested that we did not notice a flock of sheep approaching until they were quite close. Then I looked up and caught the eye of old Dot-and-Carry One burning in his head, glaring out at us as if it would fly from its socket. He would have spoken had he dared, but just then the fierce man saw him. He sank his chin upon his breast and, for all that he was “a human, made in Gawd’s h’image,” limped away into the distance in a cloud of dust, as meekly sheepish as any of the sheep he followed. Ruthita spent a lot of her time in searching for Lilith’s baby. She wanted so badly to hold it. We felt quite certain that she had hidden it somewhere, as she had our clothes. Even if it was a dead’un, it was absurd to suppose that a person so clever as to tell fortunes should not know where it might be found. We determined to watch her. We thought that if her baby was really dead and she went to it by stealth, then by following her we should be able to find my mother and, perhaps, Ruthita’s father. Ruthita had already abandoned the dread that Dot-and-Carry-One had had anything to do with her entrance into the world. Naphtha-lamps were extinguished. The crowd of merrymakers had departed. I was roused by Lilith stirring. Very gently she eased her arm from under me. I kept my eyes tightly shut and feigned that I was undisturbed. Cautiously she pulled aside the flap of the tent and stole out. I rose to my feet when she had gone. Ruthita was sleeping soundly, her small face cushioned in her hand. Without waking her I followed.