Waldo started and looked up. Had there been a moment’s time he would have dug a hole in the sand with his hands and buried his treasure. It was only a toy of wood, but he loved it, as one of necessity loves what has been born of him, whether of the flesh or spirit. When cold eyes have looked at it, the feathers are rubbed off our butterfly’s wing forever.

“What have you here, my lad?” said Bonaparte, standing by him, and pointing with the end of his whip to the medley of wheels and hinges.

The boy muttered something inaudible, and half-spread his hand over the thing.

“But this seems to be a very ingenious little machine,” said Bonaparte, seating himself on the ant-heap, and bending down over it with deep interest. “What is it for, my lad?”

“Shearing sheep.”

“It is a very nice little machine,” said Bonaparte. “How does it work, now? I have never seen anything so ingenious!”

There was never a parent who heard deception in the voice that praised his child — his first-born. Here is one who liked the thing that had been created in him. He forgot everything. He showed how the shears would work wiih a little guidance, how the sheep would be held, and the wool fall in the trough. A flush burst over his face as he spoke.

“I tell you what, my lad,” said Bonaparte emphatically, when the explanation was finished, “we must get you a patent. Your fortune is made. In three years’ time there’ll not be a farm in this colony where it isn’t working. You’re a genius, that’s what you are!” said Bonaparte, rising.

“If it were made larger,” said the boy, raising his eyes, “It would work more smoothly. Do you think there would be any one in this colony would be able to make it?”

“I’m sure they could,” said Bonaparte; “and if not, why I’ll do my best for you. I’ll send it to England. It must be done somehow. How long have you worked at it?”

“Nine months,” said the boy.

“Oh, it is such a nice little machine,” said Bonaparte, “one can’t help feeling an interest in it. There is only one little improvement, one very little improvement, I should like to make.”

Bonaparte put his foot on the machine and crushed it into the sand. The boy looked up into his face.

“Looks better now,” said Bonaparte, “doesn’t it? If we can’t have it made in England we’ll send it to America. Good-by; ta-ta,” he added. You’re a great genius, a born genius, my dear boy, there’s no doubt about it.”

He mounted the gray mare and rode off. The dog watched his retreat with cynical satisfaction; but his master lay on the ground with his head on his arms in the sand, and the little wheels and chips of wood lay on the ground around him. The dog jumped on to his back and snapped at the black curls, till, finding that no notice was taken, he walked off to play with a black beetle. The beetle was hard at work trying to roll home a great ball of dung it had been collecting all the morning; but Doss broke the ball, and ate the beetle’s hind legs, and then bit off its head. And it was all play, and no one could tell what it had lived and worked for. A striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing.