The Family
ously padded that the upper part of him seemed
shut up in a case.
“I want to go to school here, Professor St. Peter, and I’ve come to ask your advice. I don’t know anybody in the town.”
“You want to enter the university, I take it? What high school are you from?”
“I’ve never been to high school, sir. That’s the trouble.”
“Why, yes. I hardly see how you can enter the university. Where are you from ?”
“New Mexico. I haven’t been to school, but I’ve studied. I read Latin with a priest down there.” St. Peter smiled incredulously. “How much Latin?”
“I read Caesar and Virgil, the /Eneid.”
“How many books?”
“We went right through.” He met the Professor’s questions squarely, his eyes were resolute, like his voice.
“Oh, you did.” St. Peter stood his spade against the wall. He had been digging around his redfruited thorn-trees. “Can you repeat any of it?”
The boy began: “Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem," and steadily continued for fifty lines or more, until St. Peter held up a checking hand.
“Excellent. Your priest was a thorough Latinist. You have a good pronunciation and good in-
— 113—
