Paula the Waldensian - Eva Lecomte

permission at last.
The Breton came every Saturday night Teresa complained a bit at first,
seeing her kitchen turned into a night-school for such a rough ignorant
workman, but "for Jesus Christ's sake," as Paula said, she had finally become
resigned to it.
It was both pathetic and comical to see the efforts which the poor Breton
made as he tried to follow with one great finger the letters which his young
teacher pointed out to him. He stumbled on, making many mistakes but
never discouraged. Sometimes the sweat poured from him when the task
appeared too great for him. At such times he would put his head in his hands
for a moment, and then with a great sigh he would start again.
At the end of a month he had learned the alphabet and nothing more, and
even then he would make mistakes in naming some of the letters.
"Oh, let him go!" said Teresa; "He's like myself. He'll never, never
learn."
But Paula's great eyes opened wide.
"Why! I simply can't abandon him unless he should give it up himself.
Besides, have you forgotten, Teresa, what it cost me to learn to sew? But in
the end I did learn; didn't I?"
So Teresa was silenced. But once the Breton had conquered this first
barrier to learning his progress was truly surprising. In the factory his
"primer" was always with him. At lunch hours he would either study alone,
or he'd persuade a fellow-worker more advanced than himself to help him
with his lesson. Paula was astonished to see how quickly she could teach him
a verse in the New Testament or a Waldensian hymn she had learned in the
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