The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack

by Emily Cheney Neville

  Yet with all her fears, Rose Agassiz was a wise mother. She had learned what children need when she had none of it to give them. Fresh air, sunshine, plenty of good food, and freedom to work and to play she allowed her children. For in two years there was another baby, the fair-haired Auguste, who tried from his first gurgle to make it sound like the adored Louis. Then a girl, and then another girl, sound and splendid children, who slept and ate and cried and laughed when they should, and who all grew up together in the usual way. Usual, except that one of them to his mother’s mind was not a usual child. Her eldest son seemed to her as one set apart. She treated them impartially but this boy she watched and brooded over.

  In those days the intelligence quotient was still an unknown quantity. There was no way of measuring children except by the opinion of a mother like Rose Agassiz who with other mothers might conceivably be mistaken in the estimate of her child. Not much was known about the curious business of inheritance whereby a child may turn into a small replica of an unknown or a too well-known ancestor. Nobody knew exactly how important a bearing on his future a boy’s environment could have, or if those splendid shining mountains helped him to climb the hills of life.

  But Rose Agassiz knew certain truths without waiting for them to be discovered. She needed no measurements to know that her boy would exceed almost all that might be applied to him. She had no texts to help her to direct his active mind, but she seemed to need none. Louis liked to make collections. So did dozens of other boys, but the collections of Louis were ordered from an inner need to know. They took form according to that need. His mother knew that these were no ordinary collections. They were the first sure steps of genius which could walk before it crept. She made room for his collections in her clean Swiss house and yard, and encouraged him to search for more. She allowed him to turn the great Alpine boulder which was the parsonage fountain into an aquarium for his fish. She set aside part of her orderly yard for his boxes where he bred and watched animals of strange odors and sounds. She turned and made over her clothes until they would turn no more, and then fashioned them into neat frocks for the girls. A new book for Louis meant long saving. A pastor with four children could lay aside little money, and his wife must do her part.

  On her early fears for the boy’s health, she built the plan of his education and the child could have fared worse with a happier foundation. For the first ten years of his life Louis had as modern a training as ever came hot from the most radical experimental-school curriculum. Though here luck was with him. If his father had been no better teacher than preacher, the boy might have been slowed down by their constant association. But Rudolphe Agassiz was an inspired teacher, a rare gift of God to the child who feels its contact. If Louis inherited that fine touch, or if he came by it through his association with it, is a matter of speculation, but he too could teach with that effortless clarity with which his father made the pursuit of learning one of its greatest rewards. His mother might urge him to search with sharpened senses, but his father could teach him of what other men, greater than he, had discovered. Perhaps Louis’ first real piece of good fortune was in the parents who raised him.

  As for the parents, a young genius in the family may be considered good fortune or not. However dearly they love him or deeply admire him, he tunes life in too high a key for most of them to reach. He sets a pace which leaves the others far behind. He finds, as he must, his own desires and needs more important than those of anybody else. A genius is too absorbed in the drive which makes him outstrip others to attend to much of anything else. It is a strong wind behind him, and a fair prospect ahead of him, and all of life must be used for its purpose. If its demands upon his vitality are too great, he is no genius.

  But of the vitality of Louis Agassiz there was no end. Four births and deaths had not depleted his inheritance. It was as if his mother had been saving it all for him. And now she was hard put to it at times to guard that activity. Hers was never the dry monotony of discovering new projects to quiet the drone of, “What can I do next, mother?” Active as her own imagination was, she could never quite forestall that of her son’s. It is to her everlasting credit that her early fears did not curb her boy into a state of frustration or, since he had that genius which could not be suppressed, a state of rebellion which would have troubled his warm affectionate nature almost as much.

  Again and again the mother’s endurance was tested. The lake froze through the long cold winters and the children skated as easily as they ran. There was the day when the pastor drove around the lake to the fair in town. The tales which the seven-year Louis heard about the fair convinced him that he should see it. He and Auguste could easily skate across and drive back with father. He and Auguste did skate across, and they came to a wide fissure in the ice just as their mother, searching the white distance with her glass, discovered them, small valiant explorers. As she watched—and how her very breath must have choked her!—one child seemed to fall. If Louis had gone through the ice, no one could reach him now. Then down crept the other boy, a mere baby, and she saw that Louis had made a bridge of his strong young body in order that Auguste might cross. They rose and skated on, hand in hand.

  It was then that Rose Agassiz did give her boy a taste of bitter frustration. For the swift skater whom she sent after her children reached them just as they came to the shore, and dragged them ruthlessly back with him to the parsonage. No sight of the fair and no drive home with the pastor; only a tired little brother who cried a great deal, and a mother who was queerly white and silent. Even if in later years Louis understood his mother’s terror, he must have been filled with fury then. For he always remembered the incident.

  Rose Agassiz saw, too, that her eldest son was born with that gift which makes or breaks a human being according to the fiber of which he is formed. She knew that the fiber was strong, tough in its resistance from both sides of his inheritance. Three hundred years of men and women who had weathered harsh living in the Swiss Alps, who had been doctors for bodies and souls for generations, who decided right and wrong after deep thought and hard struggle, and who lived up to their own standards. She could reasonably expect that Louis would be no weakling, but it might well be that not one of those strong and righteous ancestors had needed to watch the pitfalls that this other gift would set for young Louis. She could not know that it possibly was she, herself, who had passed his defense on to him.

  For Louis had that dangerous, lovely quality which we call charm without knowing exactly what we mean by it. Part of it lay in his intense vitality which drove him into constant and splendid activity, and which might well have its source in the adequate service that his glands offered him. But more than one active person has presented no more attraction than a boomerang.

  He was, as now and again we say of boy or man, a born leader. But bullies are sometimes born leaders, and cruel men, and hated men. Louis was a leader because, perforce, people would follow him. His mother watched him with the other boys and saw that they were eager for his direction, and that the direction was amazingly wise. This lad had to be first, but his leadership was not of a gang of mischief makers. He somehow, through his own belief in their exciting quality, made these Swiss peasant boys excited about worthless objects like fish which you ate, and stones and shells which you walked on. If an undamaged specimen made Louis’ dark eyes glow and his voice vibrant while he explained it, then undamaged specimens were worth the search. Nor were those hardy outdoor boys to be fooled into listening to sugar-coated lessons. Louis was no teacher to them but the boy who could swim farther, wrestle better, run faster, eat more and laugh harder than any one of them. Why not keep at his heels, and if they lost sight of him as he forged ahead of them, why not wait for him to come into range again? After all a leader has to have some freedom for projects of his own which need concentration, and Louis always came back with some new and undreamed value to heighten life for them.

  Rose Agassiz saw this uneven relationship which has turned steadier h
eads than a child’s, and has bred resentment in older hearts than a boy’s, but she saw that for Louis it was only a means to a profound urge toward something which neither of them understood just yet, but which would not harm the young leader or his followers. Louis would always be a leader because of that quality which made people follow him, that intangible grace which is grace only when it is unconscious. His mother saw a boy so engrossed in his interests that he had small room for personal vanity or self-aggrandizement, and she did not try to curb him. His alert attention and desire to find out about things would always displace any trace of self-consciousness. And therein lay, perhaps, a share of his charm. An outgoing, friendly boy who was to grow into an outgoing, friendly man.

  The boy approached human beings much as he did his specimens with a passionate hope that here might be something new and interesting. Few people, young or old, can resist this tribute to their personality. An honest expectation is likely to meet with a degree of fulfilment. There was nothing devious about this broad-shouldered fair-faced Swiss boy. He had no fear of older, wiser people because they were after all in his gifted class. He had only eagerness to learn from them the wisdom which a few extra years had allowed them to acquire. And all through his youth older and wiser people gave generously to Louis Agassiz, seeming to value greatly the respect and admiration of the brilliant boy. If he used his charm to get what he wanted from them, it was not evident to them, nor to him. Here was a boy whose clear dark eyes met theirs as an equal, and yet who asked most humbly and honestly for what they had to give. In return he gave quite simply anything which he had found out for himself, neither undervaluing his contribution nor overestimating it. They wished him well, and saw to it whenever they could that he should be put a little further on his way.

  Rose Agassiz realized the need for satisfying the unquenchable thirst of her son, and knew that it was time for him to go. His body was strong and sound, thanks to her watchful care. His mind was alert and thoughtful, thanks to his father. Now he needed direction. Like most brilliant boys, he could do anything well. His interests were scattered rather than deep. Before his life had conformed to a pattern of diffuseness, he must be sent away to a school where the impersonal direction would help him to focus. The College of Bienne was only twenty miles away and a minister’s son could live cheaply there. Louis was now ten years old but his mother had tested the maturity of his mind and she knew that she could trust him away from her.

  When the new term opened after the fall vacation, Louis was ready to go. Clean pressed clothes, cheeks red with excitement and scrubbing, dark eyes on fire, the boy drove away from her almost forgetting to wave good-bye in his eagerness to push on to his new experience. Rose Agassiz turned back to comfort the bereft Auguste with the promise that he should follow in another year. But her mind and heart were with the lad who drove briskly along the lake road with his grandfather toward his first high goal.

  3. HARVEST; AND SEED-TIME

  The road was gray with the dawn and empty of all life except when the hedges stirred with the flutter of fall birds gathering enough food to last for a long day of their migration. Out of a cloud of dust and early morning mist trudged two young figures, well-grown, sturdy boys deep in talk which seemed important to both of them. Now and then it was abruptly broken by the sudden departure of the older boy on a jaunt of his own to investigate a bird note or wing annoyingly unlike its way in the spring. The fair-haired younger boy waited patiently in the dust, his thoughts going on with his interrupted speech. Then he would speak, looking absently at his brother’s dew-wet shoes on which the fresh dust caked.

  “We must move along without so many stops. We have far to go. And much to be decided at the end of our journey.” His face was anxious. “You are too light-hearted, Louis. Have you no regrets at leaving Bienne? Or no fears about what they will decide for us at home? If it were I, there would be no cause for worry because I should like to enter the great commercial house of my Uncle François. I would make a good clerk for him. But you…”

  Louis watched the bushes stir a moment more before he spoke. “Auguste, I have made my plans,” he turned grave eyes on his brother, “and now is no time for fears. I shall never make a good clerk for mon oncle. And you must help me to escape.”

  Auguste trudged on. “What can we do? Who will listen to you, scarcely fifteen years old?”

  Louis’ eyes lightened with laughter. “They will all listen. I have already written them that I wish to advance in the sciences, and told them what I should need to carry out my plans up to the time I shall be twenty-five. That is far enough to plan ahead.” His laughter broke out, young, infectious.

  Auguste shook his head. “How can you alone convince them of your need?”

  “I shall not convince them with my word alone. See what I have taken pains to collect.” He held out a small packet of letters which one by one Auguste read intently.

  “From the headmaster, himself! And all of these teachers! Louis, what fine things they say about you!” Auguste burned with pride. “You have small need of my help.”

  Louis swooped and snatched a small unwary snake from its dusty crossing of the road. The snake stopped writhing and submitted to his careful inspection. Louis laid it down where it meant to go and rubbed his hands dry on his stockings.

  “You will talk a great deal about my successes, and a little of how poor I am in the mathematics which a good clerk needs. We will show them these notebooks which are indeed heavy to carry but which I would not trust to grandfather’s old white horse when he comes for our bags. We will show them our records, for yours are good, too, and we must go on together for a while.” He hugged his brother’s shoulders with his free arm. “Now that we have had the four years at Bienne, we should have no regrets. There is still Lausanne, isn’t there?”

  Auguste looked as if his heart had unaccountably lifted. But his voice was still doubtful. “With no money? And shall you not miss Bienne where we have been so happy?”

  Louis nodded carelessly. “Bienne has given us all that it could and we have grown on it. We know now how to study nine hours a day, and not tire with it. It was sad, too, to let my birds and snakes and excellent fall tadpoles go. But there will be more at Lausanne.”

  Auguste wondered at his assurance, and found that in spite of himself he shared it. His spirits rose with the sun and he kicked briskly through the dust without his usual caution. They were crossing the tedious Seeland now, but already Louis was sniffing at the sharper air.

  “The grapes!” he cried. “I smell the vineyards! Tomorrow the roads will be filled with the vendangeurs. And we shall be there before the first one. Now, Auguste…” and they fell to planning their share in the “vendanges” as boys without a care in the world would do.

  Many times during their four years at Bienne they had traveled their twenty miles home along this dusty road with no thought of fatigue. At least on the way home! Sometimes it seemed unaccountably long on the way back. Never long when they were tramping toward the grape gathering at Motier. This time Louis meant to arrive early enough to have the family council over and to leave him with a free heart for celebration. He was, then, pleased when late in the afternoon after the bread and cheese of lunch were quite forgotten, he saw ambling up the road toward them grandfather’s little white horse who had learned in all his years of doctoring not to hurry unless in an emergency.

  The boys climbed into the buggy, one on each side of the old doctor, and found it very pleasant to sit down. Louis piled his notebooks on his grandfather’s lap and held the reins while Dr. Mayor looked at them. He kept up a running fire of explanation until the old man gently remonstrated. “Be quiet, my son, and watch your driving. The small horse knows the way, but he is not used to these excited jerks. And after all, I, myself, know something of the subjects you have recorded.” He turned over the pages filled with fine, stencil-clear writing. He approved the accurate drawings. “They are excellent,” he agreed. “And now Auguste, we will look at
yours.”

  Auguste looked up at his grandfather with honest surprise. “My notebooks? Oh, they are of no importance! I left them with our bags for you to bring when next you go to Bienne.” Then as if he had recalled a sudden idea, “You see, grandfather, I am not like Louis who sees so clearly and records so accurately. He is the gifted one. All of the teachers…”

  “What nonsense!” Louis’ voice was so sharp that Auguste peered around his grandfather to see if he could believe his ears. Hadn’t Louis told him what to say? “What nonsense! Auguste is gifted in a different way. You cannot make notebooks of mathematical problems. It is only that I am older and that I have been at Bienne a year longer.” He looked so fiery that Auguste shrank back. Then his voice softened. “Now you may go on, mon frère, with what you were about to say.”

  Out of Auguste’s confusion rose faltering phrases to which Dr. Mayor listened with eyes that twinkled. Louis listened, too, first with anxiety, then as the tale grew more incoherent, with laughter.

  “Enough, Auguste, enough! Good as I am, you would spoil my chance,” Poor Auguste gave up and sank behind his grandfather’s broad shoulder. “You see,” Louis explained, “I told Auguste to speak highly of me. It is hard for him, but I can tell you myself if you will give me your attention.”

  The doctor stopped chuckling as the boy went on to explain his plans. Two years at the College of Lausanne which were to be shared by Auguste who had as remarkable ability for figures as he, Louis, had for languages and science. Then a German university, and finally the future of a naturalist and man of letters. As the boy went on, producing his reasons with clarity and decision, he realized that his grandfather was treating the situation with the respect due to an older person. His confidence rose at the outcome of this first issue. When his grandfather spoke, he listened with the absorbed attention which always won the approval of his elders.