So saying, he adjusted his hat carefully on the bald crown of his head, and
moved to the door. After he had gone the German sighed again over his
work:

"Ah, Lord! So it is! Ah!"

He thought of the ingratitude of the world.

"Uncle Otto," said the child in the doorway, "did you ever hear of ten
bears sitting on their tails in a circle?"

"Well, not of ten exactly: but bears do attack travellers every day. It
is nothing unheard of," said the German. "A man of such courage, too!
Terrible experience that!"

"And how do we know that the story is true, Uncle Otto?"

The German's ire was roused.

"That is what I do hate!" he cried. "Know that is true! How do you know
that anything is true? Because you are told so. If we begin to question
everything--proof, proof, proof, what will we have to believe left? How do
you know the angel opened the prison door for Peter, except that Peter said
so? How do you know that God talked to Moses, except that Moses wrote it?
That is what I hate!"

The girl knit her brows. Perhaps her thoughts made a longer journey than
the German dreamed of; for, mark you, the old dream little how their words
and lives are texts and studies to the generation that shall succeed them.