His Name Was Walter chapter sampler

choosing, to avoid confusion. In the Matron’s stern opinion, the baby’s mother had given up the right to name him when she left him to be cared for by others. And it could not matter to the child. Later that day, in fact, casting a practiced eye over the new arrival lying so quietly in his cot, and seeing how feeble he looked, the Matron wondered why she had bothered to give him a name at all. He would probably die in a day or two, anyway. But Walter did not die. Old Ida, who for her own secret reasons took special charge of him, somehow coaxed him through those early weeks. He did not thrive, but somehow he clung to life. When he was less than two months old a great plague came to the city, carried, it was said, by soldiers returning from a foreign war. The plague swept through the hive and many were struck down, the stern Matron among them, but Walter survived. So did Ida, and whether this was a good thing or a bad one for Walter, the reader will have to decide at the end of this tale. In the years that followed, Walter was treated no better and no worse than any of the other orphan boys who lived in the hive. The food he was given was tasteless, but enough. The bed he slept in was hard, but safe. The clothes he wore were rough, but kept him warm. School lessons were dull and droning, but gradually he learned all that the bees thought it right for him to know. He was quiet and obedient, so he largely escaped the beatings dealt out to rowdier boys for the sake of their souls. The name he was called was not his own, but he did not know this, so answered to it perfectly well.

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