The Salt He Could Not See

Chapter 1A Very Small Snowstorm

Rebbi set two clear cups on a tray at the front table.

Both held water. Beside one lay a spoonful of ordinary table salt, measured by the teacher for the lesson.

Motty called the white grains a very small snowstorm.

"A snowstorm that needs a spoon," Dovid said.

Rebbi added the salt to one cup and stirred it himself. The boys watched from their seats. No one was to touch or taste the lesson materials.

At first, white grains circled the bottom.

Chapter 2Nothing at the Bottom

Soon Motty could not see the grains.

"It is gone," he said.

Rebbi held the tray where the class could see both cups.

They looked equally clear.

Motty pointed to the salted one. "Now they are the same."

"The same in what way?" Rebbi asked.

"They look the same."

That was true. Motty had watched the snowstorm disappear from view.

He had not watched the teacher take the salt out.

Chapter 3The Lesson Record

Dovid asked whether they could tell which was which by tasting.

"No," Rebbi said. "We do not taste lesson materials."

He put a label beside each cup: water, and water with salt added.

Motty copied the labels onto his observation page.

His first sentence said the salt had vanished completely.

He crossed out completely and wrote that he could no longer see separate grains.

The new sentence was less dramatic. It was also closer to what he had observed.

Chapter 4Waiting for the Teacher

For the next part of the lesson, Rebbi placed a little of each liquid in separate labeled shallow dishes. He kept them in an adult-managed place until the water had dried away.

The boys did not move the dishes or try to speed the drying with heaters or other equipment.

While they waited over the following days, Motty made a paper drawing of the two clear cups.

Without captions, even his own drawing could not say which cup had received salt.

He added the labels.

Chapter 5What Stayed Behind

When Rebbi showed the dry dishes, pale material remained in the dish that had held the salt water.

The other dish did not have that same salty residue.

Rebbi explained that the salt had dissolved in the water. It had stopped looking like separate grains, but it had not ceased to be there.

Motty put his first drawing beside the new one.

"I made looking clear mean containing nothing extra."

"You can change the explanation," Dovid said.

"I already started."

Chapter 6The Clear Cup

Motty wrote the teacher's explanation beneath his observations.

He did not turn it into a rule that every clear liquid was salt water. These two cups had a known lesson history and separate labels.

At cleanup, Rebbi took care of all the materials.

Motty kept his paper record.

His tiny snowstorm had not fallen onto the floor or escaped through the window. It had become something his eyes alone could not pick out in the cup.