It was a difficult matter, but he would manage it.
All that might happen to him and Femke in Africa would be read afterwards in pretty little books with colored pictures. He already saw himself sitting on a throne, and Femke by his side. She was not proud; she was willing for everybody to know--all those kneeling before her--that she had been a poor wash-girl. She had become queen because Walter had loved her; and now they needn't kneel any more.
On special occasions--well, of course, that was different; for instance, when his mother and Stoffel came to visit him. They should see how all the people honored him--and Femke whom they had treated so badly. But once would be enough; then he would forgive them everything and build them a big house with water-barrels and wash-tubs. For Pennewip he would build a big schoolhouse, with desks and ink-bottles and copy-books and wall maps of Europe and tables of the new weights and measures. Then the old master could give instruction from early in the morning till late at night--or even all night.
He was just puzzling over how he was going to reconcile Master Pennewip and the dusky young African to one another when Leentje opened the door.
Without noticing it he had got home and rung the door-bell. Unsuspectingly he fell into an environment quite different from that in which he had moved for the last half hour. He scarcely understood what his mother meant when she asked him how the visit turned out, and whether Juffrouw Laps was satisfied with his report on the sermon.
Sermon? Laps? He was unprepared for such an examination. He stammered out a sort of miscellaneous and irrelevant jumble of words, but fortunately containing nothing about Africa.
It now developed that in the meantime there had been a sudden change in certain details of religious belief.
"You see, mother?" said Stoffel. "Just as I've always said, it would take a lawyer to explain anything to suit her. She always knows better----"
"That's so," answered the mother. "She's cracked or crazy. Now, just tell me, Stoffel, if anyone can expect such a child to remember everything a preacher says. I can't do it myself; and you can't do it, either. Master Pennewip can't do it. I tell you, nobody can do it. And to require that of such a child! She just wants to play the professor; that's the reason she does it."