"Study hard and be the first in school inside the next three months," said Femke to the conqueror of continents, unaware of the sarcasm that lay in her words. "Otherwise, you see, my mother might think I had made fun of you; and I don't want that to happen. If you will only do that----"
"Then you must go home and begin at once."
Thus she sent him away. As she told him "Good-bye" she noticed all at once that he was too large for her to kiss. A few hours later, when Father Jansen was calling on her mother and incidentally saw Walter's painting, Walter suddenly became a child again. The priest had said that in Dutch Ophelia meant Flora, who was the patron-saint of roses and forget-me-nots.
"Oh, that picture is from a little boy, a very small boy. He's about ten years old--or nine. He's certainly not older than nine!"
"Girl, you are foolish!" cried the mother. "The boy is fifteen."
"Yes, that may be--but I just meant that he's still only a child."
She stuck Ophelia away in some hidden nook, and Mrs. Claus and Father Jansen never saw that new edition of the old flower-goddess again.
There was really reason to believe that he would learn faster now; but Pennewip's instruction would wear Femke's colors. Walter knew very well that in requiring this service she had had his own welfare in view; but this showed her interest in him, and was not so bad. How would it have looked, he thought, if, after all that had gone before, he had answered: "Everything except that!"
Of course he would have greatly preferred to serve his lady on some journey full of adventure. But one cannot select for one's self heroic deeds. In these days Hercules and St. George would have to put up with miniature dragons.
At all events, Walter took hold of his work in earnest. He studied his "Ippel," his "Strabbe," his "National History" and even the "Gender of Nouns," and everything else necessary to the education of a good Netherlander. Poetry was included; and Walter's accomplishments along this line were such that other "Herculeses" might have envied him.
He had never read the stories of tournaments. No enchantress gave him a charmed coat of mail; no Minerva put the head of Medusa on his shield--no, nothing of all that. But--Keesje, the butcher's boy, might look sharp for his laurels!