The Eternal Wonder by Pearl S. Buck

during the day his father introduced a subject, mathematics or science or literature. He read to them, up to a point, and then, posing a problem, he left it to them to solve. They could search among the books unguided or ask for guidance if they liked. Almost always the boys searched unguided. Almost always the girls asked for guidance.
    “Not because the girls are inferior,” his father told his mother one evening. “It is only because they think they are inferior.”
    “Or are afraid they are,” his mother said.
    “Same thing?”
    “Not at all—if they’re only afraid, they still have hope.”
    No one mentioned grades, no one spoke of marks. He himself grew interested in Latin because of his absorption with words, and was soon reading Virgil with relish. One language led to another and then his father introduced new teachers, a French woman, an aging Italian singer whose voice had cracked, the Spanish professor who was the head of the foreign language department in the college.
    His father drew upon the college faculty for all their teachers. New pupils came from other parts of the country, until they reached the limit of twenty.
    His father seemed to exert no pressure upon his pupils, but if a pupil lagged in curiosity or concentration he paid particular heed to that one for a matter of weeks until curiosity awakened again. If it did not, the pupil was returned to where he came from.
    “Why did you send Brad back to New York, Father?”
    “Talent isn’t enough, brains aren’t enough,” his father replied. “There has to be the hunger and thirst to know that involves energy and perseverance. I try to rouse the desire to know. If I fail, then I send the child home to his parents.”
    “You’re experimenting with these children,” his mother observed somewhat coldly.
    “It’s an experiment,” his father agreed. “But I am not making it. I am only discovering what is there—or not there. I am sorting.”
    HE WAS TWELVE WHEN HEwas ready for college entrance examinations and he passed them with ease.
    “Now,” his father said, “you are ready to see the world for yourself. I’ve been saving for years for this day. Your mother, you, and I are going on a long, long journey. We may be gone for several years. Then, perhaps at sixteen, you’ll go to college. I don’t know. You may not want to go.”
    Alas, the long, long journey with his father and mother was never to take place. Instead his father took an entirely different journey with them—a lonely journey into death. It began so slowly that none of them noticed its beginning.
    “You are working too hard,” his mother said to his father one day in June. They were to go abroad in July.
    “I’ll rest a week or two after school closes,” his father replied.
    He remembered his father always as tall and thin, and he had scarcely noticed his suddenly excessive thinness. Now he looked at his father. As usually they did after their evening meal, they sat on the cool side porch, facing the lawn enclosed by a hedge high enough to shield them from the street. His father lay outstretched on a long chair. Nothing more was said. They sat listening to the music from the stereo in the living room. But he was to remember that evening forever, because, after his mother had spoken, he examined his father’s face as he leaned back in his chair, the eyes closed, the lips pale, the cheeks hollowed. He observed a certain fragility that had not been a part of his father’s natural appearance. That night he went to bed anxious, and he drew his mother aside. “Is my father sick ?” he asked.
    “He’s going to the hospital the day after school closes and have a thorough checkup,” his mother said, and she pursed her lips together firmly.
    He hesitated, noticing everything without knowing, as he always did, the shape of his mother’s lips, the upper one bowed, the lower full, a beautiful mouth. And at the same moment the environment impressed itself upon his senses,