Sonny
looked at the picture--Svants seemed to have pictoral sense, for
which make us thankful!--and then caught his mother's sleeve and
showed it to her. Mom didn't get it. Sonny took the pencil and
drew another animal, with a pole travois. He made gestures. A
travois dragged; it went slow. A wagon had wheels that went
around; it went fast.
So Lillian and Anna thought he was the village half-wit. Village
genius, more likely; the other peasants didn't understand him, and
resented his superiority. They went over for a closer look at the
wheels, and pushed them. Sonny was almost beside himself. Mom was
puzzled, but she thought they were pretty wonderful.
Then they looked at blacksmith tools. Tongs; Sonny had never seen
anything like them. Howell wondered what the Svants used to handle
hot metal; probably big tweezers made by tying two green sticks
together. There was an old Arabian legend that Allah had made the
first tongs and given them to the first smith, because nobody could
make tongs without having a pair already.
Sonny didn't understand the fan-blower until it was taken apart.
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