"Yes," said Tant Sannie; "and he's only forty-one, though you'd take him to
be sixty. And he told me last night the real reason of his baldness."
Tant Sannie then proceeded to relate how, at eighteen years of age,
Bonaparte had courted a fair young lady. How a deadly rival, jealous of
his verdant locks, his golden flowing hair, had, with a damnable and
insinuating deception, made him a present of a pot of pomatum. How,
applying it in the evening, on rising in the morning he found his pillow
strewn with the golden locks, and, looking into the glass, beheld the
shining and smooth expanse which henceforth he must bear. The few
remaining hairs were turned to a silvery whiteness, and the young lady
married his rival.
"And," said Tant Sannie solemnly, "if it had not been for the grace of God,
and reading of the psalms, he says he would have killed himself. He says
he could kill himself quite easily if he wants to marry a woman and she
won't."
"Alle wereld!" said Trana: and then they went to sleep.
Every one was lost in sleep soon; but from the window of the cabin the
light streamed forth. It came from a dung fire, over which Waldo sat
brooding. Hour after hour he sat there, now and again throwing a fresh
lump of fuel on to the fire, which burnt up bravely, and then sank into a
great bed of red coals, which reflected themselves in the boy's eyes as he
sat there brooding, brooding, brooding.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142