On hay making days in the master's field, I strike up an
acquaintance with the frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split
stick, he serves as bait to tempt the crayfish to come out of his
retreat by the brook side. On the alder trees I catch the Hoplia,
the splendid scarab who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the
narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny
drop of honey that lies right at the bottom of the cleft corolla.
I also learn that too long indulgence in this feast brings a
headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for
the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the
throat of its funnel.

When we go to beat the walnut trees, the barren grass plots provide
me with locusts spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others
into a red. And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of
winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things. There
was no need for precept and example: my passion for animals and
plants made progress of itself.

What did not make progress was my acquaintance with my letters,
greatly neglected in favor of the pigeon. I was still at the same
stage, hopelessly behindhand with the intractable alphabet, when my
father, by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the town what
was destined to give me a start along the road of reading. Despite
the not insignificant part which it played in my intellectual
awakening, the purchase was by no means a ruinous one. It was a
large print, price six farthings, colored and divided into
compartments in which animals of all sorts taught the A B C by
means of the first letters of their names.