The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAnthony John

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAnthony JohnThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Anthony JohnAuthor: Jerome K. JeromeRelease date: October 4, 2021 [eBook #66465]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHONY JOHN ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Anthony JohnAuthor: Jerome K. JeromeRelease date: October 4, 2021 [eBook #66465]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: Anthony John

Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release date: October 4, 2021 [eBook #66465]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Tim Lindell, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHONY JOHN ***

Transcriber’s Note:A Table of Contents has been added.Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

front cover

title page

ANTHONY JOHN

JEROME K. JEROME

Author of “Passing of the Third Floor Back,”“All Roads Lead to Calvary,” etc.

logo

NEW YORKDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY1923

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

VAIL-BALLOU COMPANYBINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK

ANTHONY JOHN

Anthony John Strong’nth’arm—to distinguish him from his father, whose Christian names were John Anthony—was born in a mean street of Millsborough some forty-five years before the date when this story should of rights begin. For the first half-minute of his existence he lay upon the outstretched hand of Mrs. Plumberry and neither moved nor breathed. The very young doctor, nervous by reason of this being his first maternity case since his setting up in practice for himself, and divided between his duty to the child or to the mother, had unconsciously decided on the latter. Instinctively he knew that children in the poorer quarters of Millsborough were plentiful and generally not wanted. The mother, a high-cheeked, thin-lipped woman, lay with closed eyes, her long hands clawing convulsively at the bed-clothes. The doctor was bending over her, fumbling with his hypodermic syringe.

Suddenly from behind him he heard the sound of two resounding slaps, the second being followed by a howl that, feeble though it was, contained a decided note of indignation. The doctor turned his head. The child was kicking vigorously.

“Do you always do that?” asked the young doctor. He had been glad when he had been told that Mrs. Plumberry was to be the midwife, having heard good repute of her as a woman of experience.

“It starts them,” explained Mrs. Plumberry. “I suppose they don’t like it and want to say so; and before they can yell out they find they’ve got to draw some air into their lungs.”

She was a stout motherly soul, the wife of a small farmer on the outskirts of the town, and only took cases during the winter. At other times, as she would explain, there were the pigs and the poultry to occupy her mind. She was fond of animals of all kinds.

“It’s the fighting instinct,” suggested the young doctor. “Curious how quickly it shows itself.”

“When it’s there,” commented Mrs. Plumberry, proceeding with her work.

“Isn’t it always there?” demanded the young doctor.

“Not always,” answered Mrs. Plumberry. “Some of them will just lie down and let the others trample them to death. Four out of one litter of eleven I lost last March. There they were when I came in the morning. Seemed to have taken no interest in themselves. Had just let the others push them away.”

The child, now comfortable on Mrs. Plumberry’s ample arm, was playing with clenched fists, breathing peacefully. The doctor looked at him, relieved.

“Seems to have made a fair start, anyhow,” thought the doctor.

Mrs. Plumberry with thumb and forefinger raised an eyelid and let it fall again. The baby answered with a vicious kick.

“He’s come to stop all right,” was Mrs. Plumberry’s prophecy. “Hope he’ll like it. Will it be safe for me to put him to the mother, say in about half an hour?”

The woman with closed eyes upon the bed must have heard, for she tried to raise her arms. The doctor bent over her once more.

“I think so,” he answered. “Use your own discretion. I’ll look back in an hour or so.”

The doctor was struggling into his great coat. He glanced from the worn creature on the bed tothe poverty-stricken room, and then through the window to the filthy street beyond.

“I wonder sometimes,” he growled, “why the women don’t strike—chuck the whole thing. What can be the good of it from their point of view?”

The idea had more than once occurred to Mrs. Plumberry herself, so that she was not as shocked as perhaps she should have been.

“Oh, some of them get on,” she answered philosophically. “Each woman thinks it will be her brat who will climb upon the backs of the others and that that’s all the others are wanted for.”

“Maybe,” agreed the young doctor. He closed the door softly behind him.

Mrs. Plumberry waited till the woman on the bed opened her large eyes, then she put the child into her arms.

“Get all you can in case it don’t last long,” was Mrs. Plumberry’s advice to him as she arranged the bed-clothes. The child gave a grunt of acquiescence and settled himself to his work.

“I prayed it might be a boy,” whispered the woman. “He’ll be able to help in the workshop.”

“It never does any harm,” agreed Mrs. Plumberry. “Sometimes you get answered. And if you don’t, there’s always the feeling that you’vedone your best. Don’t let him exhaust you. It don’t do to leave it to their conscience.”

The woman drew the child tighter to her pallid bosom.

“I want him to be strong,” she whispered. “It’s a hard world for the weak.”

Never a child in all Mrs. Plumberry’s experience had been more difficult to wean. Had he merely had his mother to contend with it is difficult to say how the matter might have ended. But Mrs. Plumberry took an interest in her cases that was more than mercenary, keeping an eye on them till she was satisfied that her help was no longer needed. He put up a good fight, as Mrs. Plumberry herself admitted; but having at last grasped the fact that he was up against something stronger than himself, it was characteristic of him, as the future was to show, that he gave way quite suddenly, and transferred without any further fuss his energy to the bottle. Also it was characteristic of him that, knowing himself defeated, he bore no ill-will to his conqueror.

“You’re a good loser,” commented Mrs. Plumberry, as the child, accepting without protest the India rubber teat she had just put into his mouth, looked up into her face and smiled. “Perhapsyou’ll be a good winner. They generally go together.” She bent down and gave him a kiss, which for Mrs. Plumberry was an unusual display of emotion. He had a knack of making his way with people, especially people who could be useful to him.

It seemed a freak of Nature that, born of a narrow-chested father and a flat-breasted, small-hipped mother, he should be so strong and healthy. He never cried when he couldn’t get his own way—and he wanted his own way in all things and wanted it quickly—but would howl at the top of his voice. In the day-time it was possible to appease him swiftly; and then he would gurgle and laugh and put out his little hands to pat any cheek that might be near. But at night-time it was not so easy to keep pace with him. His father would mutter sleepy curses. How could he do his day’s work if he was to be kept awake night after night? The others had merely whimpered. A man could sleep through it.

“The others” had been two girls. The first one had died when three years old, and the second had lived only a few months.

“It’s because he’s strong,” explained the mother. “It does his lungs good.”

“And what about my weak heart?” the mangrumbled. “You don’t think about me. It’s all him now.”

The woman did not answer. She knew it to be the truth.

He was a good man, hard-working, sober and kind in his fretful, complaining way. Her people and she herself, had thought she had done well when she had married him. She had been in service, looked down upon by her girl acquaintances who were earning their living in factories and shops; and he had been almost a gentleman, though it was difficult to remember that now. The Strong’nth’arms had once been prosperous yeomen and had hunted with the gentry. Rumour had it that scattered members of the family were even now doing well in the colonies, and both husband and wife still cherished the hope that some far-flung relation would providentially die and leave them a fortune. Otherwise the future promised little more than an everlasting struggle against starvation. He had started as a mechanical engineer in his own workshop. There were plenty of jobs for such in Millsborough, but John Strong’nth’arm seemed to be one of those born unfortunates doomed always to choose instinctively the wrong turning. An inventor of a kind. Some of his ideas had prospered—other people.

“If only I had my rights. If only I’d had justice done me. If only I hadn’t been cheated and robbed!”

Little Anthony John, as he grew to understanding, became familiar with such phrases, repeated in a shrill, weak voice that generally ended in a cough, with clenched hands raised in futile appeal to Somebody his father seemed to be seeing through the roof of the dark, untidy workshop, where the place for everything seemed to be on the floor, and where his father seemed always to be looking for things he couldn’t find.

A childish, kindly man! Assured of a satisfactory income, a woman might have found him lovable, have been indulgent to his helplessness. But the poor have no use for weakness. They cannot afford it. The child instinctively knew that his mother despised this dreamy-eyed, loose-lipped man always full of fear; but though it was to his mother that he looked to answer his questions and supply his wants, it was his father he first learnt to love. The littered workshop with its glowing furnace became his nursery. Judging from his eyes, it amused him when his father, having laid aside a tool, was quite unable the next minute to remember where he had put it. The child would watch him for a time while he cursed andspluttered, and then, jumping down from his perch, would quietly hand it to him. The man came to rely upon him for help.

“You didn’t notice, by any chance, where I put a little brass wheel yesterday—about so big?” would be the question. John, the man, would go on with his job; and a minute later Anthony, the child, would return with the lost wheel. Once the man had been out all the afternoon. On entering the workshop in the evening he stood and stared. The bench had been cleared and swept; and neatly arranged upon it were laid out all his tools. He was still staring at them when he heard the door softly opened and a little, grinning face was peering round the jar. The man burst into tears, and then, ashamed of himself, searched in vain for a handkerchief. The child slipped a piece of clean waste into his hand and laughed.

For years the child did not know that the world was not all sordid streets and reeking slums. There was a place called the Market Square where men shouted and swore and women scolded and haggled, and calves bellowed and pigs squealed. And farther still away a space of trampled grass and sooty shrubs surrounded by chimneys belching smoke. But sometimes, on days when in the morning his father had cursed fate more than usual, hadraised clenched hands towards the roof of the workshop more often than wont, his mother would disappear for many hours, returning with good things tied up in a brown-paper parcel. And in the evening Somebody who dwelt far away would be praised and blessed.

The child was puzzled who this Somebody could be. He wondered if it might be the Party the other side of the workshop roof to whom his father made appeal for right and justice. But that could hardly be, for the Dweller beyond the workshop roof was apparently stone-deaf; while his mother never came back empty handed.

One evening there drew nearer the sound of singing and a tambourine. Little Anthony opened the workshop door and peered out. Some half a dozen men and women were gathered round the curb, and one was talking.

She spoke of a gentleman named God. He lived far off and very high up. And all good things came from Him. There was more of it: about the power and the glory of Him, and how everybody ought to be afraid of Him and love Him. But little Anthony remembered he had left the door of the workshop open and so hurried back. They moved on a little later. The child heard them singing as they passed.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,Praise Him all creatures here below.”

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below.”

The rest of the verse was drowned by the tambourine.

So it was to God that his mother made these frequent excursions, returning always laden with good things. Had she not explained to him, as an excuse for not taking him with her, that it was a long way off and up ever so high? Next year, perhaps, when his legs were sturdier. He did not tell her of his discovery. Mrs. Plumberry divided children into two classes: the children who talked and never listened and the children who listened and kept their thoughts to themselves. But one day, when his mother took her only bonnet from its wrappings and was putting it on in front of the fly-blown glass, he plucked at her sleeve. She turned. He had rolled down his stockings, displaying a pair of sturdy legs. It was one of his characteristics, even as a child, that he never wasted words. “Feel ’em,” was all he said.

His mother remembered. It happened to be a fine day, so far as one could judge beneath the smoke of Millsborough. She sent him to change into his best clothes, while she finished her own preparations, and together they set forth. Shewondered at his evident excitement. It was beyond what she had expected.

It was certainly a long way; but the child seemed not to notice it. They left the din and smoke of Millsborough behind them. They climbed by slow degrees to a wonderful country. The child longed to take it in his arms, it was so beautiful. The woman talked at intervals, but the child did not hear her. At the journey’s end the gate stood open and they passed in.

And suddenly they came across him, walking in the garden. His mother was greatly flustered. She was full of apologies, stammering and repeating herself. She snatched little Anthony’s cap off his head, and all the while she kept on curtseying, sinking almost to her knees. He was a very old gentleman dressed in gaiters and a Norfolk jacket. He wore side whiskers and a big moustache and walked with the aid of a stick. He patted Anthony on the head and gave him a shilling. He called Mrs. Strong’nth’arm “Nelly”; and hoped her husband would soon get work. And then remarking that she knew her way, he lifted his tweed cap and disappeared.

The child waited in a large clean room. Ladies in white caps fluttered in and out, and one brought him milk and wonderful things to eat; and later hismother returned with a larger parcel than usual and they left the place behind them. It was not until they were beyond the gates that the child broke his silence, and then he looked round carefully before speaking.

“He didn’t look so very glorious,” he said.

“Who didn’t?” demanded his mother.

“God.”

His mother dropped her bundle. Fortunately it was on a soft place.

“What maggot has the child got into his head?” she ejaculated. “What do you mean by ‘God’?”

“Him,” persisted Anthony. “Isn’t it from him that we get all these good things?” He pointed to the parcel.

His mother picked it up. “Who’s been talking to you?” she asked.

“I overheard her,” explained the child. “She said it was from God that we got all our good things. Ain’t it?”

His mother took him by the hand and they trudged on. She did not answer for a time.

“That wasn’t God,” she told him at last. “That was Sir William Coomber. I used to be in service there.”

She lapsed into silence again. The bundle seemed heavy.

“Of course it is God that gives it us in a manner of speaking,” she explained. “He puts it into Sir William’s heart to be kind and generous.”

The child thought a while.

“But they’re his things, ain’t they?” he asked. “The other one’s. Sir William’s?”

“Yes; but God gave them to him.”

It seemed a roundabout business.

“Why doesn’t God give us things?” he demanded. “Don’t He like us?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered the woman. “Don’t ask so many questions.”

It was longer, the way home. He offered no protest at being sent to bed early. He dreamed he was wandering to and fro in a vast place, looking for God. Over and over again he thought he saw Him in the distance, but every time he got near to Him it turned out to be Sir William Coomber, who patted him on the head and gave him a shilling.

There was an aunt and uncle. Mr. Joseph Newt, of Moor End Lane, Millsborough, was Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’s only surviving brother. He was married to a woman older than himself. She had been a barmaid, but after her marriage had “got religion,” as they say up North.

They were not much to boast of. Mr. Newt was a dog-fancier; and according to his own account an atheist, whether from conviction or mere love of sport his friends had never been able to decide. Earnest young ministers of all denominations generally commenced their career in Millsborough by attempting his conversion, much encouraged during the earlier stages of the contest by Mr. Newt’s predisposition in all matters towards what he called a “waiting game.” The “knock-out” blow had not yet been delivered. His wife had long since abandoned him to Satan. The only thing, as far as she could see, was to let him enjoy as much peace and comfort in this world as circumstances would permit. In Anthony John’s eyes the inevitable doom awaiting him gave to hisuncle an interest and importance that Mr. Newt’s somewhat insignificant personality might otherwise have failed to inspire. The child had heard about hell. A most unpleasant place where wicked people went to when they died. But his uncle, with his twinkling eyes and his merry laugh, was not his idea of a bad man.

“Is uncle very, very wicked?” he once demanded of his aunt.

“No; he’s not wicked,” replied his aunt, assuming a judicial tone. “Better than nine men out of ten that I’ve ever come across.”

“Then why has he got to go to hell?”

“He needn’t, if he didn’t want to,” replied his aunt. “That’s the awful thing about it. If he’d only believe, he could be saved.”

“Believe what?” inquired Anthony John.

“Oh, I haven’t got time to go into all that now,” replied his aunt. She was having trouble with the kitchen stove. “Believe what he’s told.”

“Who told him?”

“Everybody,” explained his aunt. “I’ve told him myself till I’m sick and tired of it. Don’t ask so many questions. You’re getting as bad as he is.”

It worried him, the thought of his uncle going tohell. Why couldn’t he believe this thing, whatever it was, that everybody else believed?

It was an evening or two later. His aunt had gone to chapel. His uncle was smoking his pipe beside the kitchen fire, old Simon, the bob-tailed sheep-dog, looking up at him with adoring eyes. It seemed just the opportunity for a heart-to-heart talk.

He insinuated his hand into his uncle’s grimy paw.

“Why don’t you believe?” he asked.

His uncle turned on him his little twinkling eyes.

“Believe what?” he counter-questioned.

“What everybody believes,” the child answered.

The little man shook his head.

“Don’t you believe them,” he answered. “They don’t believe any more than I believe. They just say it because they think they’re going to get something out of it.”

The little man reached forward for the poker and gently stirred the fire.

“If they believed all they say that they believe,” he continued, “this world would be a very different place to what it is. That’s what I always tell them, and that’s what they’re never able to answer and never will be.”

He laid down the poker and turned again to the child.

“You’ll hear it all in good time, my lad,” he said. “‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.’ ‘Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor.’ That’s what their God tells them. Do you see them doing it?”

The little man laughed a merry, good-tempered laugh.

“Why, old Simon has got more sense than they have.” He stooped and patted the shaggy head resting upon his knee. “He knows it wouldn’t be any good, just looking at me as though he loved me, and then not doing what I told him.”

He refilled his pipe and lighted it.

“I’ll believe,” he added, “when I see them believing.”

Anthony John liked visiting the tumble-down cottage in Moor End Lane. His mother was nervous of the consequences. But Mrs. Plumberry’s view was that those who talked the loudest are not always the most dangerous.

“The little man’s got plenty of horse sense,” so Mrs. Plumberry argued, “and what Emma Newt don’t know about heaven and how to get there, isn’t worth trying to find out, so far as I can judge.Between the two of them he isn’t likely to get any harm even if he doesn’t get much good. Anyhow, he gets a square meal.”

The dogs were the chief attraction to Anthony John. He had never been let to play in the street with the other children of the neighbourhood. It was in the dismantled railway carriage at the bottom of his uncle’s garden that he first tasted play. His uncle had taken him in and introduced him. There was first and foremost old Simon, the bob-tailed sheep-dog. The others came and went, but old Simon was not for sale. The next oldest inhabitant of the railway carriage was a smooth-coated retriever bitch. She had constituted herself old Simon’s chief assistant, always prepared to help him on the many occasions when riot had to be suppressed. It was wonderful how both dogs knew the exact moment when fighting in play turned to fighting in anger. Then not a moment was to be lost. Bess would stand ready, but she never interfered unless Simon gave a peculiar low bark that meant he wanted her. He had been instructed not to call her in if he could possibly do without her.

“Never invite a woman to take part in a row you can manage by yourself,” his master had confided to him. “Once in, they never know when to stop.”

On the day of Anthony John’s first visit Bess was in a good mood to receive strangers. Her four puppies had just reached the fighting stage. She was absurdly proud of them and welcomed an audience. They fell upon Anthony John with one accord. His uncle was watching out of a corner of his eye. But the child only laughed and hit back at them. There were terriers of all sorts, bred rather for brain and muscle than for points: their purchasers being generally the tenants of lonely farms upon the moors who, wanting them as watchdogs and to keep down the rats, preferred smartness to pedigree. Mr. Newt’s pride was in his bull pups, for which he had a specialclientêleamong neighbouring miners. He kept these apart in a railed off corner of the carriage, and once or twice a week, instead of feeding them separately, he would throw a big meaty bone into their midst, and then, leaning over the iron rail, watch the fight. The dog that most often secured the bone, leaving the others hungry, would be specially marked out for favour. His uncle, going in among them, would pat and praise him; and for him henceforward would be reserved the choicest food and the chiefest care.

The dogs soon got to know him and would welcome him with a joyous rush. The child wouldgo down on all fours and would be one of them, and together they would roll and tumble in the straw. It was jolly to feel their soft paws pressing against his body, their cold damp noses pushed against his hands and face. There were mimic fights when they would tug his hair and bite his toes, and he would pull their silky ears and grab them by their hair. And, oh! the shouting and the barking and the growling and the laughing!

Life was fine in the long low railway carriage where one gave free play to one’s limbs and lungs and none were afraid.

And sometimes for no reason the glorious gambol would suddenly blaze up into anger. The bite would sting, and in the growl there would be menace. The child would spring up with a savage cry and go for his foe with clenched fists and snarling mouth, and the whole pack would be fighting one another senselessly and in real earnest. Then in an instant old Simon would be among them. He never talked. The shaggy head would move so swiftly that none knew where to expect it, and old Simon would be standing with a space around him faced by a circle of fierce eyes. But, generally speaking, none cared to break into that space. The child would hate old Simon for his interference and would punch at him viciously, trying to getacross his huge body to the dog he wanted to tear and mangle. But feint and dodge as he might, it was always old Simon’s rump that was towards him, and at that he could punch as hard as he liked.

Five minutes later they would all be friends again, licking one another’s wounds. Old Simon would lie blinking his wistful, dreamy eyes.

It had been a slack year. Many of the mills had had to close down. Added to this there came a strike among the miners and distress grew daily. Mrs. Newt took the opportunity to buy a secondhand tombstone. It had been ordered by one of the pumpmen for his mother, but when the strike came the stonemason suggested payment on account, and as this was not forthcoming he had put the stone aside. Unfortunately for him he had already carved as far as “Sacred to the Memory of Mildred,” which was not a common name in Millsborough. It happened, however, to be Mrs. Newt’s, though on her conversion she had dropped it as savouring too much of worldliness, employing instead her second name, which was Emily. Hearing of the incident, Mrs. Newt called upon the stonemason and, taking full advantage of the man’s dilemma, had secured the stone for about one-third of its value. She had had the rest of the lettering completed, leaving to be filled in only the date ofher death. It was an imposing-looking stone and Mrs. Newt was proud of it. She would often go and gaze at it where it stood in an out-of-the-way corner of the stonemason’s yard; and one day she took Anthony to see it. Her only anxiety now was about her grave. There was one particular site near to a willow tree that she much desired. It belonged to a baker who had secured it some years before on learning that he was suffering from an intermittent heart. The unemployment among the weavers, added to the strike of the miners, was making it difficult for him to collect his money, and Mrs. Newt was hopeful that an offer of ready cash at the right moment might induce him to sell.

“It’s a sad world,” she confided to Anthony John as she stood affectionately regarding the stone on which the verse of a hymn had been carved implying that Mildred Emily Newt had departed for realms of endless bliss. “Can’t say as I shall be sorry to leave it.”

It promised to be a hard winter for the poor of Millsborough. The coal strike had ended only to make way for trouble in the steel works. Somewhere the other side of the world the crops had failed. Bread rose in price each week; and there were pinched and savage faces in the streets.

His uncle had gone up to the moors to try andsell a terrier. His aunt sat knitting by the kitchen fire. Little Anthony had come in to warm himself before returning home. It was cold in the railway carriage. There were not enough of them there now to keep it warm. He was sitting with his knee clasped in his hands.

“Why doesn’t God stop it?” he demanded suddenly. His knowledge had advanced since the day he had thought Sir William Coomber was God.

“Stop what?” inquired his aunt continuing her knitting.

“The strike. Why doesn’t He put everything all right? Can’t He?”

“Of course He could,” explained his aunt. “If He wanted to.”

“Why don’t He want to? Doesn’t He want everybody to be happy?”

It appeared He did, but there were difficulties in the way. Men and women were wicked—were born wicked: that was the trouble.

“But why were we born wicked?” persisted the child. “Didn’t God make us?”

“Of course He made us. God made everything.”

“Why didn’t He make us good?”

It seemed He had made us good. Adam and Eve were both quite good, in the beginning. Ifonly they had remained good—hadn’t disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit we might all of us have been good and happy to this day.

“He was the first man, wasn’t he—Adam?” demanded the child.

“Yes. God made him out of the earth. And saw that he was good.”

“How long ago would that be?” he asked.

His aunt was not sure of the exact date. Along time ago.

“A hundred years?”

Longer than that. Thousands and thousands of years ago.

“Why couldn’t Adam have said he was sorry and God have forgiven him?”

“It was too late,” explained his aunt. “You see, he’d done it.”

“What made him eat it? If he was a good man and God had told him not to?”

It was explained to him that the Devil had tempted Adam—or rather Eve. It seemed unimportant so far as their unfortunate descendants were concerned.

“But why did God let the Devil tempt him—or her, whichever it was. Can’t God do everything? Why didn’t He kill the Devil?”

Mrs. Newt regarded her knitting with dismay.While talking to Anthony John she had lost count of her stitches. Added to which it was time for Anthony John to go home. His mother would be getting anxious.

His aunt, though visiting was not much in her line, dropped in on his mother a day or two later. Mrs. Plumberry happened to have looked in for a gossip and a cup of tea the same afternoon. His aunt felt sure that Anthony John would be helpful to his father in the workshop.

In the evening his mother informed him that she and his father had decided to give to him the opportunity of learning whatever there was to be learnt about such things as God and sin and the everlasting soul of man. She didn’t put it in these words, but that was the impression she conveyed. On the very next Sunday that was he should go to chapel; and there kind ladies and gentlemen who understood these matters, perhaps even better than his aunt herself, would answer all his questions and make all things plain to him.

They were most kind and sympathetic to him at the Sunday school. His aunt had prepared them for him, and they welcomed him as promising material. There was one young man in particular with an æsthetic face and long black hair that he had a habit of combing with his hand; and a plainyoung woman with wonderfully kind eyes, who in the middle of a hymn suddenly caught him up and hugged him. But they didn’t really help him. They assured him that God loved us and wanted us all to be good and happy. But they didn’t explain to him why God had overlooked the devil. He had never said a word to Adam about the devil—had never so much as warned him. It seemed to Anthony John that the serpent had taken God as much by surprise as he had Adam and Eve. It seemed unfair to Anthony John that the whole consequences of the unforseen catastrophe should have been visited on Adam and Eve; and even more unfair that he himself, Anthony John, coming into the world thousands of years later, and who, as far as he could see, had had nothing whatever to do with the business, should be deemed, for all practical purposes, as an accomplice before the act. It was not that he argued it thus to himself. All he was conscious of was a vague resentful feeling that it wasn’t fair. When his mother had sent him out on his first errand she had warned him of bad boys who would try to take his money away from him, as a result of which he had kept a sharp look-out and, seeing a couple of boys who looked as though they might be bad, he had taken the precaution of walking close behind a policeman. It seemed tohim that Adam hadn’t been given a dog’s chance.

They told him that, later on, God was sorry for us and had put things right by letting His only Son die for us. It was a beautiful story they told him about this Jesus, the Son of God. He wondered who had suggested the idea, and had decided that it must have been the little lad Jesus who had first thought of it and had persuaded God to let Him do it. Somehow he convinced himself that he would have done just the same. Looking down from heaven on the poor people below, and thinking of their all going to hell, he would have felt so sorry for them.

But the more he thought about it all the more he couldn’t understand why God instead of merely turning Satan out of heaven, hadn’t finished him off then and there. He might have known he would be up to mischief.

At first his teachers had encouraged him to ask them questions, but later on they changed their minds. They told him he would understand all these things better as he grew up. Meanwhile he mustn’t think, but listen and believe.

Mr. Strong’nth’arm lay ill. It was just his luck. For weeks he had been kicking his heels about the workshop, cursing Fate for not sending him a job. And Fate—the incorrigible joker that she is—had knocked at his door ten days ago with an order that he reckoned would keep him going for a month, and then a week later had struck him down with pleurisy. They told him that if he kept quiet and didn’t rave and fling his arms about, sending the bedclothes half a dozen times a day on to the floor, he would soon get well. But what was the good of everybody talking? What was to become of them? This job, satisfactorily completed and sent home, would have led to others—would have started him on his feet again. Now it would be taken away from him and sent elsewhere to be finished. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm made pilgrimages to the great house, returning with hot-house grapes. Mrs. Newt came with a basket. Both she and her husband would like to have done more; but times were bad. Even believers were in difficulty. Mrs. Newt suggested resignation.

It was the fourth morning after Mr. Strong’nth’arm’s seizure, Anthony, putting on for warmth his father’s overcoat, had crept down in the faint dawn to light the kitchen fire, his mother being busy in the bedroom. He had just succeeded, and a little blaze leapt up and threw fantastic shadows on the whitewashed walls. Looking round, he saw the shape of a squat hobgoblin with a tiny head. He moved his arms, and immediately the hobgoblin responded with a gigantic gesture of delight. From the fireplace, now behind him, there came a cheerful crackling sound; it was just the noise that a merry old witch would make when laughing. The child, holding high the skirts of his long coat, began to dance; and the hobgoblin’s legs were going like mad. Suddenly the door opened and there stood the oddest of figures. He was short and bowlegged and had a big beard. He wore a peaked cap, and over his shoulder he carried a bundle hooked on to a stick. Without a doubt ’twas the King of the Gnomes. He flung down his bundle and stretched out his hands. The child ran towards him. Lord how he danced! His little bow legs moved like lightning and his arms were so strong he could toss little Anthony up with one hand and catch him again with the other. The little bright flame stretched up higher and higheras if the better to see the fun. The merry old witch laughed louder. And the shadows on the wall got so excited that they tumbled down flat on the ceiling.

His mother called from above to know if the kettle was boiling; and at that the little flame turned pale and disappeared. The merry old witch was as quiet as a mouse. The shadows ran up the chimney and the light came in at the door.

Anthony didn’t answer his mother. He was rubbing his eyes. He thought he must still be in bed. It was the King of the Gnomes that called up the stairs to say that the kettle would be boiling in five minutes. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, hearing a strange voice, came down as she was. She found her son Anthony distraught and still rubbing his eyes. The King of the Gnomes was pushing carefully selected pieces of wood through the bars of the grate and blowing them with his mouth. He held one of his enormous hands in front of his golden beard to save it from being singed. He knew Mrs. Strong’nth’arm quite well and shook hands with her. She looked at him as if she had seen him before—somewhere, some time, or else had heard him described; she wasn’t sure which. She seemed to be glad to see him without knowing why. At first she was a bit afraid of him. But that was all gonebefore the tea was ready. Anthony watched his mother with astonishment. She was one of those bustling, restless women, constitutionally unable to keep still for a minute. Something had bewitched her. She stood with her hands folded and wasn’t even talking. She might have been a visitor. It was the King of the Gnomes that made the tea and cut the bread and butter. He seemed to know where everything was. The fire was burning brightly. As a rule it was the devil to get going. This morning it had met its master. He passed Mrs. Strong’nth’arm and went upstairs with the tray and still as if in a dream she followed him.

Anthony crept to the bottom of the stairs and listened. The King of the Gnomes was talking to his father. He had a tremendously deep voice. Just the voice one would expect from a gentleman who lived always underground. Anthony could feel the vibrations of it underneath his feet. Compared with it, the voices of his father and his mother sounded like the chorus of the little terriers when old Simon was giving tongue.

And suddenly there happened a great wonder. His mother laughed. Never before that he could remember had he heard his mother laugh. Feeling that strange things were in the wind, he creptout into the yard and washed himself under the pump.

Three weeks the King of the Gnomes dwelt with them. Every morning he and Anthony would go into the workshop. The furnace would be still aglow with the embers of the night before. Of course the King of the Gnomes would be at home with a forge and an anvil. But even so, Anthony would marvel at his dexterity and strength. The great sinewy hands, that to save time or to make a neater finish would often bend the metal to its shape without the help of other tools, could coax to their place the smallest screws, fix to a hair’s breadth the most delicate adjustments. Of course he never let on that he was the King of the Gnomes. Only the child knew that; and a warning hairy finger, or a wink of his laughing blue eye would caution Anthony not to give away the secret when third parties were around.

He never went out. When not in the workshop he was busy about the house. Of course, when you come to think of it, there are no lady gnomes, so that accounted for his being equally apt at woman’s work. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm had little else to do but to nurse her husband; and even at that he would take his turn when she went marketing; and of evenings, while talking, he would helpher with her darning. There seemed to be nothing those great hands could not do.

Nobody knew of his coming. His mother had taken Anthony aside on the first morning and had impressed upon him that he was not to say a word. But he would not, even if she had not told him; for if you did the King of the Gnomes at once vanished underground. It was not till days after he was gone that Mrs. Strong’nth’arm mentioned his visit, and then only to Mrs. Plumberry under oath of secrecy.

Mrs. Plumberry, being so often where there was sorrow, had met him once herself. Wandering Peter the country folk called him. Mrs. Plumberry marvelled at his having visited the Strong’nth’arms. It was rarely that he came into towns. He must have heard of their trouble. He had ways of his own of finding out where he was wanted. At lambing time, when the snow lay deep upon the hills, they had learnt to listen for his cheery whistling drawing nearer through the darkness. He might have been a shepherd all his life. He would take the writhing ewes in his two big hands, and at his touch they would cease their groaning. And when in some lonely cottage man or child lay sick, and there was none to help, the good wife would remember stories she had heard and, slipping outbeyond the hedge, would peer with straining eyes into the night. And for sure and certain—so the legend ran—there would come to her the sound of footsteps through the heather and Wandering Peter would emerge out of the shadows and would greet her. There he would stay till there was no longer need of him, doctoring and nursing, or taking the good man’s place at the plough. He would take no wage beyond his food and lodging. At his departure he would ask for a day’s rations to put into his bundle, and from those who might have it to spare an old coat or a pair of boots not altogether past the mending.

Where he had his dwelling none knew, but lost folk upon the moors, when overtaken by the darkness, would call to him; and then, so it was said, he would suddenly appear and put them on their way. They told of an old curmudgeon who, but for a snarling cur as savage as himself, lived alone in a shanty among the rocks. A venomous, blasphemous old scoundrel. The country people feared and hated him. They said he had the evil eye, and when a cow died in the calfing or a sow ate her young, the curses would be deep and bitter against old Michael—old Nick, as they termed him—of the quarry.

One night, poaching, old Michael stumbled andfell to the bottom of a rocky chasm. He lay there with a broken leg and the blood flowing from a wound in his head. His cries came back to him from the rocks, and his only hope was in his dog. It had gone to seek help he knew, for they cared for one another in their snarling way, these two. But what could the brute do? His dog was known and hated as far as Mike himself. It would be stoned from every door. None would follow it to rescue him. He cursed it for a fool and his eyes closed.

When he opened them Wandering Peter was lifting him up in his strong arms. The dog had not wasted his voice upon the neighbours. No cottage or farm had been wakened by his barking. It was Wandering Peter he had sought.

There was a girl who had “got herself into trouble,” as the saying is, and had been turned out of her place. Not knowing where else to go she had returned home, though she guessed her greeting would be cruel, for her father was a hard, stern man and had always been proud of his good name. She had climbed slowly the long road across the wolds, and the short winter’s day was fading when she reached the farm. As she feared, he had slammed the door in her face, and creeping away, she had lain down in the woods thinking to die.

Her father had watched her from the house. Through the night he had struggled with himself, and towards morning had lighted the lantern and gone in search of her. But she had disappeared.

It was a strange story that she told when, weeks later, she reappeared with her child at her breast. She said that Christ had come to her. He had golden hair and a golden beard, but she knew him to be Christ because of his kind eyes. He had lifted her up as though she had been a child; and, warm against his breast, he had carried her through the night till they came to a dwelling place among rocks. There he had laid her down upon a bed of soft dry moss, and there the child had been born, Christ tending her with hands so gentle she had felt no pain. She did not know that she had been there for over a month. To her it had seemed but a little time. All she could tell was that she had been very happy and had wanted for nothing and that he had told her “beautiful things.” One day he told her that all was well now with her and the child and that her father longed for her. And that night he had carried her and the child in his arms; and in the morning they came to the edge of the wood from where she could see the farm. And there Christ had blessed her and the child and lefther. And her father had come across the fields to meet her.

They explained to her it was not Christ who had found her. It must have been Wandering Peter. But she never believed them. Later, when Anthony had grown into boyhood, he met her one day on the moors. Her son had gone abroad and for many years he had not written. But she was sure that it was well with him. A white-haired, sweet-faced woman. Not quite “all there” in many ways, it was hinted, and yet with a gift for teaching. She had her daily round among the far-off cottages and scattered hamlets. The children looked forward to her coming. She told them wonderful stories, so they said.

She must have learnt the trick from Wandering Peter, Anthony thought. He remembered how, seated cross-legged upon the bench, he had listened while Peter, when not hammering or filing, had poured forth his endless stories of birds and beasts, of little creeping things and their strange ways, of the life of the deep waters, of far-off lands and other worlds, of the brave things and the sad things that happened long ago. It was from Peter that Anthony first heard the story of Saint Aldys.

Once upon a time, where Millsborough stands today were woods and pleasant pastures. Thewinding Wyndbeck, now flowing black and sluggish through long dark echoing tunnels past slimy walls and wharves, was then a silvery stream splashing and foaming among tree-crowned rocks and mossy boulders. Where now tall chimneys belch their smoke and the slag stands piled in endless heaps around the filthy pits, sheep browsed and cattle grazed and little piebald pigs nuzzled for truffles in the soft sweet-smelling earth. The valley of the Wyndbeck then would have been a fair place to dwell in but for evil greedy men who preyed upon the people, driving off their cattle and stealing their crops, making sport of their tears and prayers. And of all the wicked men who harassed and oppressed them none were so cruel and grasping as Aldys of the yellow beard—the Red Badger they called him.

One day the Badger was returning from a foray, and beside him, on an old gaunt pony, secured by a stirrup-leather to the Badger’s saddle-girth, rode a little lad. A trooper had found the boy wandering among the blackened ruins, and the Badger, attracted by the lad’s beauty, had taken him to be his page.

The Badger rode, singing, pleased with his day’s work; and there crept up a white mist from the sea. He did not notice for a time that he and the ladwere riding alone. Then, drawing rein, he blew a long loud blast upon his horn. But there came no answer.

The lad was looking at him with strange eyes; and Red Aldys, seized he knew not why by a sudden frenzy of hate, drew his sword and struck at the little lad with all his strength.

And the sword broke in his hand; and those strange gentle eyes still looked upon Red Aldys. And around the little lad there shone a great light.

And fear fell upon Red Aldys of the yellow beard, and flinging himself upon the ground, he cried in a loud voice: “Christ have mercy upon me a sinner.”

And the child Christ laid His hands upon Red Aldys and spoke words of comfort to him and commanded him that he should follow Him and serve Him.

And on the spot where Christ had laid His hands upon him Aldys made for himself a dwelling-place among the rocks beside the winding Wyndbeck. And there for many years he laboured to bring peace and healing to the poor folk of the valley, learning their needs that he might help them. And the fame of him spread far and wide, and many came to him to ask his blessing, repenting of theirevil lives. And he went about among the people teaching the love of the Lord Jesus.

Little Anthony had often passed the great church of St. Aldys just beyond the market square, an imposing building of grey stone with a spire one hundred and eighty feet high. They say that, forming part of its foundations, are the very rocks among which once Saint Aldys dwelt, on the spot where Christ had appeared to him and had forgiven him his sins.

Having heard the story, he felt a longing to see the inside of it, and one afternoon, instead of going to his uncle’s, he wandered there. It was surrounded by iron railings and the great iron gates were padlocked. But in a corner, behind a massive buttress, he found a little door that opened. It led into a stone passage and down some steps into a vaulted room where he fell over a chair, and a bat flew out and fluttered silently until it disappeared into the shadows. But he found the church at last. It was vast and high and very, very cold, and only a faint chill light came in through the screened windows. The silence frightened him. He had forgotten to make a note of the way by which he had entered, and all the doors that he tried were securely fastened. A terror seized himthat he would never be able to get out. It seemed to him that he was in a grave.

By luck he blundered back into the little vaulted chamber, and from there groped his way out. He closed the door behind him with a bang. He had a feeling that something was following him and might drag him back. He ran all the way home.

There had been a period of prosperity following the strange visit of Wandering Peter. John Strong’nth’arm came back to his workshop another man, or so it seemed to little Anthony. A brisk, self-confident person who often would whistle while he worked. The job on which he had been engaged when taken ill had been well finished and further orders had resulted. There were times when the temporary assistance of an old jobbing tinker and his half-witted son was needful. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, discussing things in general with a neighbour, would casually refer to “Our workpeople.” That uncle in Australia, or elsewhere, who had been fading year by year almost to disappearing point, reappeared out of the shadows. With the gambler’s belief that when once the luck changes every venture is bound to come home, she regarded his sudden demise as merely a question of time. She wondered how much he would leave them. She hoped it would be sufficient to enable them to become gentlefolks.

“What is a gentlefolk?” asked Anthony, to whom she had been talking.

It was explained to him that gentlefolk were people who did not have to work for their living. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm had served them and knew.

There were others, who sat in offices and gave orders. To this lesser rank it was possible to climb by industry and virtue. But first of all you must go to school and learn.

His mother caught him up in her thin arms and pressed him passionately to her narrow bosom.

“You will be a gentleman,” she prophesied. “I feel it. I’ve prayed God every night since you were born.” She smothered him with kisses and then put him down.

“Don’t say anything to your father,” she added. “He doesn’t understand.”

He rather hoped his uncle in Australia wouldn’t leave them too much money. He liked work: fighting with things, conquering them; tidying the workshop; combing the fleas out of his uncle’s dogs. Lighting the kitchen fire was fun even when it was so cold that he wasn’t quite sure he’d a nose on his face and could only tell what his hands were doing by looking at them. You lit the paper and then coaxed and blew and watched the little flame grow bigger, feeding it and guiding it. And when you had won, you warmed your hands.

His father had taught him to read during themany hours when there had been nothing else to do. They had sat side by side upon the bench, their legs dangling, holding the open book between them. And writing of a sort he had learnt for himself, having heard his mother regret that she had not studied it herself when young. His mother felt he was predestined to be a great scholar. She wanted to send him to a certain “select preparatory school” kept by two elderly maiden sisters of undoubted gentility. Their prospectus informed the gentry of the neighbourhood that special attention was given by the Misses Warmington to manners and the cultivation of correct behaviour.

His father had no use for the Misses Warmington—had done business with them in connection with a boiler. He mimicked the elder Miss Warmington’s high-pitched voice. They would teach the boy monkey-tricks, give him ideas above his station. What was wrong with the parish school, only two streets away, where he would mix with his own class and not be looked down upon?

His mother did not agree that he would be with his own class among the children of the neighbourhood. The Strong’nth’arms had once been almost gentry. He would learn coarse ways, rude speech, acquire a vulgar accent. She carried her way, as she always did in the end. Dressed in her bestclothes, and accompanied by Anthony in a new turn-out from head to foot, she knocked at the door of the Misses Warmington’s “select preparatory school.”

It was one of a square of small, old-fashioned houses that had once been on the outskirts of Millsborough, but which now formed a connecting link between the old town and the maze of new mean streets that had crept towards it from the west. They were shown into the drawing-room. The portrait of a military gentleman with a wooden face and stars upon his breast hung above the marble mantelpiece. On the opposite wall, above the green rep sofa, hung a frightened-looking lady with ringlets and fingers that tapered almost to a point.

Mrs. Strong’nth’arm sat on the extreme edge of a horsehair-covered chair and had difficulty in not sliding off it on to the floor. Anthony John, perched on another precisely similar chair, had mastered the problem by sitting well back and tucking one leg underneath him.

After a few minutes there entered the elder Miss Warmington. She was a tall gaunt lady with a prominent arched nose. She apologized to Mrs. Strong’nth’arm for having kept them waiting, but apparently did not see Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’soutstretched hand. For a time his mother didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

She explained her errand, becoming almost voluble on the importance both she and his father attached to manners and a knowledge of the ways of gentlefolks.

Miss Warmington was sympathetic; but, alas! the Miss Warmingtons’ select preparatory school for gentlefolks had already its full complement of pupils. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm, not understanding the hint, referred to rumours that tended to refute this argument. It seemed needful there should be plain speaking. The Misses Warmington themselves were very sorry, but there were parents who had to be considered. Particularly was it a preparatory school for young ladies and gentlemen. A pupil from the neighbourhood of Platt Lane—the child of a mechanic—no doubt a most excellent——

Mrs. Strong’nth’arm interrupted. An engineer, employing workmen of his own.

The elder Miss Warmington was pleased to hear it. But there was no getting over the neighbourhood of Platt Lane. And Mrs. Strong’nth’arm herself, the child’s mother. Miss Warmington had not the slightest intention of being offensive. Domestic service Miss Warmington had alwaysheld to be a calling worthy of all esteem. It was the parents.

Miss Warmington rose to end the interview. And then by chance her eyes fell upon Anthony John as he sat with one small leg tucked underneath the other.

The tears were in Mrs. Strong’nth’arm’s eyes, and she did not notice. But Anthony saw quite plainly the expression that came over the tired, lined face of the elder Miss Warmington. He had seen it before on faces that had suddenly caught sight of him.

“You say your husband employs work-people?” she said in a changed tone, turning to Mrs. Strong’nth’arm.

“A man and a boy,” declared Mrs. Strong’nth’arm in a broken voice. She dared not look up because of the tears in her eyes.

“Would you like to be one of our little pupils?” asked the elder Miss Warmington of Anthony John.

“No, thank you,” he answered. He did not move, but he was still looking at her, and he saw the flush upon her face and the quiver of her tall gaunt frame.

“Good afternoon,” said Miss Warmington as she rang the bell. “I hope you’ll find a school to suit you.”

Mrs. Strong’nth’arm would much have liked to make a cutting answer and have swept out of the room. But correct behaviour once acquired becomes a second nature. So, instead, Mrs. Strong’nth’arm curtsied and apologised for her intrusion, and taking Anthony John by the hand, departed with bowed head.

In the street primeval instinct reasserted itself. She denounced the Misses Warmington as snobs. Not that it mattered. Anthony John should be a gentleman in spite of them. And when he had got on and was rich they would pass the Miss Warmingtons in the street and take no notice of them, just as though they were dirt. She hoped they would live long enough. And then suddenly her anger turned against Anthony John.

“What did you mean by saying ‘No, thank you’ when she asked you if you’d like to come?” she demanded. “I believe she’d have taken you if you’d said yes.”

“I didn’t want her to,” explained Anthony. “She isn’t clever. I’d rather learn from someone clever.”

With improved financial outlook the Strong’nth’arms had entered the Church of England. When you were poor it didn’t matter; nobody minded what religion you belonged to; church or chapel,you crept into the free seats at the back and no one turned their eyes to look. But employers of labour who might even one day be gentlefolks! The question had to be considered from more points of view than one.

Mr. Strong’nth’arm’s people had always been chapel folk; and as his wife had often bitterly remarked, much good it had done him. Her own inclination was towards the established church as being more respectable; and arguing that the rent of a side pew was now within their means, she had gained her point. For himself Mr. Strong’nth’arm was indifferent. Hope had revived within him. He was busy on a new invention and Sunday was the only day now on which he had leisure and the workshop to himself. Anthony would have loved to have been there helping, but his mother explained to him that one had to think of the future. A little boy, spotlessly clean and neatly dressed, always to be seen at church with his mother, was the sort of little boy that people liked and, when the time came, were willing to help.

A case in point, proving the usefulness of the church, occurred over this very problem of Anthony’s education. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm called on the vicar and explained to him her trouble. The vicar saw a way out. One of the senior pupilsat the grammar school was seeking evening employment. His mother, a widow, possessed of nothing but a small pension, had lately died. Unless he could earn sufficient to keep him he would have to discontinue his studies. A clever lad; the vicar could recommend him. Mrs. Strong’nth’arm was gratitude personified. The vicar was only too pleased. It was helping two birds with one stone. It sounded wrong to the vicar even as he said it. But then so many things the vicar said sounded wrong to him afterwards.

The business was concluded that same evening. Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge became engaged for two hours a day to teach Anthony the rudiments of learning, and by Mrs. Strong’nth’arm was generally referred to as “our little Anthony’s tutor.” He was a nervous, silent youth. The walls of his bed-sitting-room, to which when the din of hammers in the workshop proved disturbing he would bear little Anthony away, was papered with texts and mottoes, prominent among which one read: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” The preparatory education of Anthony proceeded by leaps and bounds. The child was eager to learn.

Between the two an odd friendship grew up founded upon a mutual respect and admiration.Young Tetteridge was clever. The vicar had spoken more truly than he knew. He had a clever way of putting things that made them at once plain and easy to be remembered. He could make up poetry—quite clever poetry that sometimes made you laugh and at other times stirred something within you which you didn’t understand but which made you feel grand and all aglow. He drew pictures—clever pictures of fascinating never-to-be-seen things that almost frightened you, of funny faces, and things that made you cry. He made music out of a thing that looked like a fiddle, but was better than a fiddle, that he kept in a little black box; and when he played you wanted to dance and sing and shout.

Back to Index Next