There were tears in
the good minister's eyes as he told Carl to pack up and get ready to
go back home; he had an errand at Dr. Rothman's, but would return
presently. The good doctor saw that his patient was heavy of heart
and asked him what was wrong. When he heard what Carl's teachers
had said, he flashed out:
"What! he not amount to anything? There is not one in the whole lot
who will go as far as he. A minister he won't be, that I'll allow,
but I shall make a doctor of him such as none of them ever saw. You
leave him here with me." And the parson did, comforted in spite of
himself. But Carl's mother could not get over it. It was that
garden, she declared, and when his younger brother as much as
squinted that way, she flew at him with a "You dare to touch it!"
and shook him.
When Dr. Rothman thought his pupil ready for the university, he sent
him up to Lund, and the head-master of the Latin School gave him the
letter he must bring, to be admitted. "Boys at school," he wrote in
it, "may be likened to young trees in orchard nurseries, where it
sometimes happens that here and there among the saplings there are
some that make little growth, or even appear as wild seedlings,
giving no promise; but when afterwards transplanted to the orchard,
make a start, branch out freely, and at last yield satisfactory
fruit.
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