Tommy Wideawake Part 32

"Had some awful good practice with the doctor's bat."

"We saw you on the downs afterwards."

Tommy looked at me, with bright eyes, as if about to tell me something, but he changed his mind.

"Yes," he said, "I met a stranger there."

XVIII

AND LAST

And so these brief sketches plucked here and there from the boyhood of Tommy Wideawake, and patched unskilfully together, must be gathered up and docketed as closed, even as the boyhood from which they have been drawn.

Yet the story of Tommy Wideawake is still being written, where all may read who have eyes for the strength, and G.o.dliness of a country squire's life, and a hand for his stalwart grip.

On the occasion of Tommy's twenty-first birthday, there were, of course, great rejoicings in Camslove, and a general gathering of the country-side to the old Grange.

Tommy, in the course of a successful, if not eloquent speech, made some extravagant remarks as to the debt he owed to his four friends, and guardians--the poet, the vicar, the doctor, and myself.

Modesty forbids their repet.i.tion, and doubtless youthful enthusiasm accounted for their absurdity.

One other he mentioned in his speech--a stranger whom, long ago, he had met on the upland road.

Thus Tommy in his maiden speech.

Three years later he brought a bride to Camslove, and her name was Madge, and the rest of us live on in much the old way, excepting of course the poet, who, as a married man, affects a fine pity for us less fortunate ones.

And yet we are not altogether the same men, I fancy, as in those days.

The vicar's house has become a perfect playground for the poet's children, and my own is occasionally sadly mauled by certain sacrilegious nephews, much to the annoyance of my man.

The doctor is president, and indeed the s.h.i.+ning light of the village cricket team, and we, at Camslove, flatter ourselves that we can put up a very decent game.

So I lay aside my pen awhile and read what I have written, and as I read I am glad that I am led from garden to valley, and stream, and mill, and over the common, and up the windy down.

For if a boy's will be indeed the wind's will, let it be that of the wind on the heath, which the gipsies breathe. And if the thoughts of a boy be long, long thoughts, let them be born of earth, and air, and sun.

And his sins, since sin and sunlight are incompatible, must needs be easy of correction.

And his faith, when of a sudden he shall find that there is G.o.d in all these things, shall be so deep that not all the criticism of all the schools shall be able to root it out of his heart.

And the moral, if you must needs hammer one out, would be this, that soundness is more to be desired than scholars.h.i.+p, and that the heart of boyhood is, by nature, nearer to G.o.d than that of later life.

But let him who would draw the veil aside, do so with tender hands.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE OUTLOOK"

FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT SUNDRY VERSES THE AUTHORS THANKS ARE DUE

TWO BOOKS VERY LIKE TOMMY WIDEAWAKE

ARE

KENNETH GRAHAME'S

THE GOLDEN AGE

AND

DREAM DAYS

MR. RICHARD LEGALLIENNE:

"I can think of no truer praise of Mr. Kenneth Grahame's 'Golden Age'

than that it is worthy of being called 'A Child's Garden--of Prose.'"

MR. ISRAEL ZANGWILL:

"No more enjoyable interpretation of the child's mind has been accorded us since Stevenson's 'Child's Garden of Verses.'"

MR. SWINBURNE:

"The art of writing adequately and acceptably about children is among the rarest and most precious of arts.... 'The Golden Age' is one of the few books which are well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise.... The fit reader--and the 'fit' readers should be far from 'few'--finds himself a child again while reading it. Immortality should be the reward....

Praise would be as superfluous as a.n.a.lysis would be impertinent."

THE NEW YORK TIMES SAt.u.r.dAY REVIEW:

"In this province, the reconstruction of child life, Kenneth Grahame is masterly. In fact we know of no one his equal."