The Three of Us

167. Grandpa Sees Walter's Intelligence

Oz Diva, thank you- you inspire me <3 

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Matthew took Walter out to the barn; Marilla needed more quiet than a two and a half year old could handle. It wasn't cold inside the barn, and Walter could run around and jump into the hay all he wanted.

As the novelty of having this freedom wore off, Walter slowed down and came back to Matthew.

"Grandpa," he said, "Jump in da hay."

"No," he told Walter, shaking his head. "Too old to jump in, but let me show you what I have for you."

Matthew went to where his old bag of marbles was hidden. He got it down and brought it over to Walter. The little boy watched with fascination as Matthew emptied the bag into his work-worn farm hands.

"Barbles," Walter said.

Matthew was surprised. "You know what marbles are?"

"Gil-ber has barbles," Walter explained. "Mama got them when we go to Gil-ber's house."

"Oh...are they here?" Matthew asked.

"No, they go back to Gil-ber's house, cause mama say I choke," Walter announced.

Matthew closed his hand around the 'barbles'. He hadn't thought about Walter putting the marbles in his mouth. Perhaps he was being foolish. But then... "You don't eat marbles," he said seriously. He made sure Walter was looking right at him as he repeated: "Marbles aren't for eating. All right?"

Walter nodded. "I know what barbles is for. And I don't like 'em!"

Again Matthew was surprised. But then he thought maybe Walter hadn't liked the experience of marbles simply because he'd put them in his mouth and Anne had scolded him to the point that he was now turned against the whole thing.

But Walter's reason for not liking marbles was something else altogether: "Mama put 'em in a row and she say one, two, three and she put more and she tell me and then she get mad."

Ah, Matthew thought. Walter's explanation was a little cryptic, but Matthew got the general idea.

"What else does mama do with marbles?" he asked the little boy.

"She put all da red ones here and all da blue ones here and she make me say how many," he provided.

Matthew could tell that counting was not a favorite activity for Walter.

"Well, these marbles don't do that," he said quietly. "Do you want to know what these marbles do?"

Walter looked at him with big shining eyes.

Matthew held one up and then put it on the floor, sending it right to him.

"They roll."

Walter caught the marble, and rolled it back to Matthew. He laughed when Matthew caught it.

Matthew rolled two at a time, which made Walter even happier. Walter caught one in each hand. He rolled them back to Matthew.

Matthew pushed hay out of the way and made a ring in the dirt. He rolled five marbles into the ring. He spoke quietly. "This is how you play marbles. Now you take a shooter- shooters are the big ones- and once you've got it held steady, you flick it like this-"

Matthew closed his hand and put the shooter marble on top of his closed middle finger, held in place between the pad of his index finger and the knuckle of his thumb...and then realized that a two-and-a-half year old likely did not yet have the dexterity to mimic this.

But Walter had picked up another marble, and without any trouble at all had positioned it in his hand just the way Matthew had. His hand was too small to hold the shooter, something he seemed to realize of his own accord and used a smaller marble instead.

Matthew was surprised. "You got it," he said. He moved on. "The object of the game is to get as many marbles outside the circle as you can."

He thought he would have to demonstrate the best ways to shoot.

But Walter seemed to understand how to achieve this, without Matthew explaining it. He crawled around the circle finding the best place to shoot.

"Here's a line," he said. "Look, look."

Matthew did not see a line but when he knelt down to be eye level with the ground, he saw what Walter meant- the line wasn't obvious from overhead.

Walter flicked his shooter into the ring and four of the five marbles rolled out.

"Do it again," he demanded, poking Matthew in the ribs.

"You can set them up, too," Matthew said with a smile.

"No, grandpa do it," Walter said.

Walter covered his eyes with his chubby little hands. "It a surprise."

Matthew was amused by this and rolled the marbles back into the circle.

"You can look," he said.

Walter went all around the circle looking, and when he didn't find a line like before, he seemed to be thinking.

He shot his marble onto one marble inside the ring, and it knocked into the next marble, which rolled to the opposite side and hit another marble, setting off a chain reaction, and they all came rolling out.

Matthew looked at him in shock.

Walter explained, "There no line this time."

"What did you try?" Matthew asked, wondering if Walter's action had been coincidence or if it was intentional.

"I push it there cause then it push that one and roll over here and this one come out," Walter said.

He and Walter continued playing. Eventually Walter wanted to try to toss the marbles to see how far they could go. So Matthew set up some buckets in a row, each one slightly further away from the little boy.

Walter tossed the marbles into the buckets one after another, never missing, even when the buckets were moved farther away. This did not appear to be challenging for him at all.

He was happy and proud of himself finally, and when it was time to go in for supper, he said:

"I like da way you play with barbles, Grandpa. Not mama's way!"