He was a trim-looking fellow with
curly brown hair, somewhat near-sighted. He was as poor as the
average boy in the yard and as poorly dressed, but he was the
tidiest of us. He would draw, with a piece of chalk, figures of
horses and men which we admired. He knew things, good and
bad, and from that Friday I often sought his company. Unlike most
of the other boys, he talked little, throwing out his remarks at long
intervals, which sharpened my sense of his wisdom. His father
never let him attend the manoeuvers, yet he knew more about
soldiers than any of the other boys, more even than I, though I had
that retired soldier, the sheepskin man, to explain things military
to me.
One summer evening Naphtali and I sat on a pile of logs in the
yard, watching a boy who was "playing" on a toy fiddle of his own
making. I said: "I wish I knew how to play on a real fiddle, don't
you?"
Naphtali made no answer. After a little he said: "You must think it
is the bow that does the playing, don't you?"
"What else does it?" I asked, perplexed
"It's the fingers of the other hand, those that are jumping around.
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