Moodie Laughed Heartily At
All My Fears; But Indeed I Found Them No Joke.
Brian's eldest son, a lad of fourteen, was not exactly an idiot,
but what, in the old country, is
Very expressively termed by the
poor people a "natural." He could feed and assist himself, had been
taught imperfectly to read and write, and could go to and from the
town on errands, and carry a message from one farm-house to another;
but he was a strange, wayward creature, and evidently inherited, in
no small degree, his father's malady.
During the summer months he lived entirely in the woods, near his
father's dwelling, only returning to obtain food, which was
generally left for him in an outhouse. In the winter, driven home
by the severity of the weather, he would sit for days together
moping in the chimney-corner, without taking the least notice of
what was passing around him. Brian never mentioned this boy - who
had a strong, active figure; a handsome, but very inexpressive
face - without a deep sigh; and I feel certain that half his own
dejection was occasioned by the mental aberration of his child.
One day he sent the lad with a note to our house, to know if Moodie
would purchase the half of an ox that he was going to kill. There
happened to stand in the corner of the room an open wood box, into
which several bushels of fine apples had been thrown; and, while
Moodie was writing an answer to the note, the eyes of the idiot were
fastened, as if by some magnetic influence, upon the apples.
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