With attending to the bees I had not heard the parson say, "Second
Commandment?" and as he was rather deaf he did not hear what I said. But
of course he knew it was not long enough for the right answer, and he
said, "Speak up, my boy," and Jem tried to start me by whispering, "Thou
shalt not make to thyself"--but the three bees went on sitting on Master
Isaac's hand, and though I began the Second Commandment, I could not
take my eyes off them, and when Master Isaac saw this he smiled and
nodded his white head, and said, "Never you mind me, sir. They won't
sting the old bee-keeper." This assertion so completely turned my head
that every other idea went out of it, and after saying "or in the earth
beneath" three times, and getting no further, the parson called out,
"Third Commandment?" and I was passed over--"out of respect to the
family," as I was reminded for a twelvemonth afterwards--and Jem pinched
my leg to comfort me, and my mother sank down on the seat, and did not
take her face out of her pocket-handkerchief till the workhouse boys
were saying "the sacraments."
My mother was our only teacher till Jem was nine and I was eight years
old.
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