The yard was crowded with people. It was the greatest sensation
we children had ever enjoyed there. We remained out chattering
of the event till the windows were aglitter with Sabbath lights

I was in a trance. The ceremony was a poem to me, something
inexpressibly beautiful and sacred.

Presently a boy, somewhat older than I, made a jest at the young
couple's expense. What he said was a startling revelation to me.
Certain things which I had known before suddenly appeared in a
new light to me. I relished the discovery and I relished the deviltry
of it. But the poem vanished. The beauty of the wedding I had just
witnessed, and of weddings in general, seemed to be irretrievably
desecrated

That boy's name was Naphtali. He was a trim-looking fellow with
curly brown hair, somewhat near-sighted. He was as poor as the
average boy in the yard and as poorly dressed, but he was the
tidiest of us. He would draw, with a piece of chalk, figures of
horses and men which we admired. He knew things, good and
bad, and from that Friday I often sought his company. Unlike most
of the other boys, he talked little, throwing out his remarks at long
intervals, which sharpened my sense of his wisdom. His father
never let him attend the manoeuvers, yet he knew more about
soldiers than any of the other boys, more even than I, though I had
that retired soldier, the sheepskin man, to explain things military
to me.

One summer evening Naphtali and I sat on a pile of logs in the