"No, you can't go yet, my boy: just step out on the piazza, and sit down
in that arm-chair, till I see you again."
Although Felix would have preferred to have his own way, there was
something in the doctor's manner that made him hesitate about attempting
to disregard his advice, the more especially as the doctor took hold of
his arm, led him upon the piazza, and sat him down in the large
out-of-door rocker, with its wide, comfortable arms. Once set down in
front of the cool orchard, Felix felt a consciousness of languor and
restfulness that made him quite willing to keep his seat. Johnny seated
himself on a settee near; and the little boy, who had gone back to his
play, said,--
"Isn't this a good place to stay in?"
"Yes," replied Johnny. "I should like just such a place to sit and read
in, of a summer day: it's almost as good as the sky-room, isn't it,
Felix?"
"I guess so: only you can't see much of the sky; it's all green
whichever way you look, except where the house is."
"That would make it all the better for reading, because green is such a
good color for the eyes."
"It's lucky, then, that the grass and leaves are green instead of red:
if every thing were red and yellow always, as the trees are in autumn,
it would get to be sort of tiresome, I suppose."
"It isn't luck that makes the foliage green," replied Johnny; "somehow
or other, Nature does it on purpose; you can tell that because every
thing is all right in just the same way: if it was luck, things would
happen right only now and then, and sometimes they would happen all
wrong and uncomfortable."
"They do happen uncomfortable, lots of times: it's uncomfortable to have
the sun hot in the middle of a summer's day. If Nature wants to fix
things all right, why don't it have it just about the right warmth all
day, summer and winter?"
"There are ever so many things we need to eat that would never ripen in
that case, besides a great many other disadvantages. You see, Nature
don't always do what is pleasantest for us at the time, but what is best
for us in the end. She might make every thing so convenient that nice
crops would grow without any care, and we should have our clothes all
ready made and fitted for us, like that cow and horse over in the lot;
but it is better for us to have to work and contrive to supply our own
wants out of the material that Nature has supplied in the rough,--like
trees for our fine houses, and cotton, flax, wool, and silk for our
hundreds of sorts of clothes."
"She has made some things all ready for us: there are fruits and milk
and vegetables and meat for food, and furs for clothing."
"Yes, of course, she supplied some things all ready to eat and wear, so
that folks could get along until they became civilized; and then, you
see, she is very good-natured, and likes to make it as easy and
comfortable for us as she can without spoiling us and making babies of
us: there are ever so many pleasant things in the world that we could
get along without; but it is intended that it shall be a pleasant world
to live in after all, so that we sha'n't want to get out of it before
we've learned all we need to learn. I suppose that's why death is made
to seem so horrible; for if death seemed pleasant, we shouldn't take
such good care of our lives."
"How did you know all that?"
"Some of it I learned myself by studying about Nature from books, and
some my father and mother told me ever so long ago, and some I've heard
the minister say at church."
"Our minister don't say that Nature looks out for us: he says God does
it. I don't pay much attention to what he says; but as he always keeps
on saying that, I can't help remembering it."
"He says God takes care of you, and gives you a pleasant home, don't
he?"
"Yes."
"But it's your father and mother that do it, too, isn't it?"
"Yes: it always seems to me that the minister don't put it right, and
I've wanted to tell him so, sometimes."
"Yes, he puts it right, if you understand what he means: he means that
God made the world so that children have parents to take care of them.
God don't appear to do things in this world directly himself, but seems
to have agents to carry out his plans; and Nature is the greatest of
these agents, who appoints all the smaller agents. Of course, God made
Nature, and some think he is in Nature; and we can find out a good deal
about him by studying her ways."
"What can you find out?"
"We can find out that he is wise and good, and that he doesn't let us
know every thing in a minute, even about his wisdom and goodness, and
that we've got to wait until we get into another world before we can
understand the meaning of some things that happen in this world; so we
learn to have faith in him,--that is, to believe he will make every
thing right sometime, even though we can't see how."
"Do you suppose we shall ever know just how the trees and grass came to
be so green?" said Felix, who was getting sleepy, and looking dreamily
into the thick, low boughs of the apple-orchard.
"Why, we know that now; that was explained long ago."
"Was it? Well, I'd like to know how. I never heard any one tell about
it."
"Hasn't your teacher at school told you what makes colors?"
"She's talked something about it; but I never saw any sense to what she
was saying, and so I didn't pay attention."
"I learned about that in the primary school, but I didn't understand it
very well until I read about it in my 'Science for the Young.' I'll see
if I can explain it to you."
There was a rubber ball among the little boy's playthings, and Johnny
asked him if he might take it a few moments. As the boy was not using
the ball, he handed it to Johnny very willingly, saying, "You can play
with it as long as you've a mind to."
Johnny threw the ball on the floor of the piazza in a straight line,
remarking,--
"You see, Felix, the ball bounds right back to my hand, in just the
direction in which I threw it down."
"That's nothing: everybody knows that a ball always does so."
"But that is just the way some of the rays of light bound back whenever
they strike any thing which is not transparent; that is, if they strike
it directly, or at a right angle. The rays which come back are called
reflected rays. Every thing which is not transparent reflects light that
shines upon it; that is, the light bounds back. It is just the same
with heat: that which is not absorbed by the substance upon which it
falls, bounds back, or is reflected."
"If that's so, what of it?"
"Why, that's what makes the grass green, and flowers of different
colors, and your suit blue, and your necktie red, and your eyes brown:
that's what makes things seem to be colored."
"Seem to be colored? Why, they are colored! my suit was colored with a
blue dye, and there's a kind of green dye in grass: I've got it on my
stockings and handkerchiefs many a time."
"The juice, or fluid, in the grass looks green, just as the grass does,
because its particles are so arranged that they absorb all of the light
except the green rays, and those they reflect. The substance of those
roses out there in the garden absorbs all except a red part of the
light, and reflects that. Your collar reflects all the colors in the
light, and that makes it white, which is the mixing of all the colors
together in certain proportions. My spectacle-case looks black, because
it absorbs the light without reflecting any of it.'"
"I don't believe that," replied Felix: "I shall always believe things
are colored in themselves, without any regard to the light. How do you
know that there are different colors in light? You can't see any thing
but a kind of yellow."
"You can't see yellow, unless it is reflected."
"Why, yes, you can. Look over in that field; it's just as yellow there
where the sunshine falls as can be; and where it falls between the trees
here in the orchard, the green looks yellowish, while it is just bright
green under the trees; and the sun itself is just as yellow as can be."
"The grass has been mowed out in that lot, so the sun has dried it, and
changed the substance of it so that it reflects more yellow rays. I
suppose that here in the orchard more of the rays striking the parts
that are not protected by the trees gives a different reflection. As
for the sun being yellow, it isn't always yellow; that is, I mean it
doesn't always look yellow; I have seen it look quite red."
"If it isn't yellow, I'd like to know what color it is!" exclaimed
Felix, rather impatiently.
"I don't suppose it is any color at all, though it gives the impression
of a good many colors to our minds: color is nothing but a sensation
produced by the kind of light that is reflected to our eyes. But light
that is not separated at all, gives us only a sensation of whiteness. I
don't suppose the sun would look yellow to us if we could see it without
looking through any air. The air even changes the direction of the
sunlight so as to make the sun appear to us to rise a little while
before it does rise."
"I don't see how folks found out all that, and I don't believe they
have! I'll bet they made it all up!"
"I have a fine prism at home: we'll go up in the sky-room this
afternoon, and I will separate some light into its different colors.
But look here, Felix! see! When I throw this ball against the floor in
a slanting direction, notice how it bounds back the other way in just
such a slant line as I threw it in from this way. Light does just like
that, and heat too: if a ray of light strikes a plane surface at a
slant, it is reflected the other way in exactly the same slant. And
it's something so when light passes through any transparent substance:
it comes out the other side just as it went in. That is, if it goes in
at a slant, it comes out at the same slant it went in at, making an
angle; but if it passes in at a right angle, as I throw this ball
against the floor, it comes out and goes on the other side, in the same
straight line."
"I should think it would make your head ache to try to study about such
things," said Felix, with a yawn; "it makes mine ache just to hear about
it; it's all so queer and unlikely and mixed up. I think it's ever so
much pleasanter to just take things as they are, without trying to make
out what makes them so and so. I'm glad the grass is green, and the sky
blue, and that there are other pretty colors in the world; but I don't
care a cent what makes them so. Though I don't believe the color is
just in the sun or our eyes."
"I like to know why things are so and so; in order to see how wise and
beautiful the laws of Nature are, and what wisdom and beauty there must
be in all the rest of the universe."
"What do I care about the rest of the universe? all I care about is the
part of it which I am in."
"But when we see how wonderful this little part of it is, we can get a
pleasant idea of what another world might be which we shall go into when
we leave this: and that is ever so much pleasanter than having such a
common idea about it as some folks have, as a place paved with gold, and
built of stones; or to have no idea of it at all, or only to think of
just being dead and buried. When we learn how every thing is made for
some purpose, and nothing ever really dies, and then remember that our
minds and feelings are the very highest part of all creation, and the
most delicate and complicated, we feel very certain that there is some
great future before us that we can't tell any thing about."
"If you can't tell any thing about it, what's the use of trying?"
"Why, it's enough for us to see that it must be something grand; that's
all we want to know now: we've got plenty to enjoy and take up our minds
here; all we want to know is, that we shall keep on having enough to
busy us, and make us happy always; and Nature tries to tell us that in
every way she can, or as much about it as she thinks it best for us to
be told of. I am sure I am happier for knowing what little I have
learned; and it makes me happy, too, to keep on learning curious things
about Nature."
"I'd rather ride 'round on a bicycle, and see what's going on, any time,
than study about such things," replied Felix, with another and longer
yawn. "I know I feel well enough to ride home now. I'm going to get my
bicycle."
Felix immediately rose, and walked around the house to the place where
Johnny had placed the bicycles. But Johnny went into the office, and
told the doctor Felix was determined to go, and asked him if he would
try his pulse. The doctor, who had been sitting near a window of his
office, not far from where the boys were conversing, had heard the whole
of their conversation. But as the blinds were closed, the boys had not
noticed this, and were rather surprised when, after feeling Felix's
pulse, and saying it was safe for him to go, he remarked,--
"Well, my boy, you have had two lessons from Nature this morning: she
taught you herself that you will get punished if you trifle with her
laws,--viz., in this case, if you try to get along without using the
eyes she has given you,--and she has taught you, second or third hand,
through Johnny, something of the way in which she produces her beautiful
and useful effects. So, although this is vacation time, you see a great
many things can be learned outside of a schoolroom. Life is a great
school, and you have just begun your course in it. Make the most of
your advantages; for some folks go through life without learning much of
any thing, just as some boys go through school and college, yet come out
ignoramuses at last."
The doctor then told the boys he should like to have them stop any time
they came that road, and that, if they would come in apple-time, they
might take their choice of fruit from the trees in the orchard.