CHAPTER XXV.
THE CHILD AT PLAY.
"When the long day is past, the steps turn homeward."
Once a child played on the sea-shore. The waves sang and the sand shone and the pebbles glistened. There was light everywhere; light from the blue sky, and from the moving water, and from the gleaming pebbles.
The little one, in its happiness, sang with the murmuring sea and played with the stones and the shells that lay about. Joy was everywhere and the child was filled with it.
But the day passed. And the little one grieved in its heart to leave the beautiful place. Delight was there and many rare things that one could play with and enjoy.
The child could not leave them all. Its heart ached to think of them lying there alone by the sea. And it thought:
"I will take the pebbles and the shells with me and I will try to remember the sunlight and the song of the sea."
So it began to fill its little hands. But it saw that after as many as possible were gathered together there were yet myriads left. And it had to leave them.
Tired and with a sore heart it trudged homeward, its hands filled to overflowing with the pebbles that shone in the sun on the sea-shore. Now, however, they seemed dull. And because of this, the child did not seem to regret it so much if now and then one fell. "There are still some left in my hands," it thought.
At length it came near to its home; so very tired, the little limbs could scarcely move. And one who loved the child came out smiling to welcome it. The little one went up close and rested its tired head; and opening its little hand, soiled with the sea and the sand, said:
"Look, mother, I still have one. May I go for the others some day?"
And the mother said:
"Yes, thou shalt go again."
And the child fell asleep to dream of the singing sea and of the sunlight, for these were in its heart.