Master Sweepstakes clapped his hands with loud exultations, and insulting laughter. But his laughter ceased when our provident hero calmly drew from his pocket an excellent piece of whipcord.
"The everlasting whipcord, I declare!" exclaimed Hal, when he saw that it was the very same that had tied up the parcel.
"Yes," said Ben, as he fastened it to his bow, "I put it into my pocket to-day, on purpose, because I thought I might happen to want it."
He drew his bow the third and last time.
"O Papa," cried little Patty, as his arrow hit the mark, "it's the nearest, is not it the nearest?"
Master Sweepstakes, with anxiety, examined the hit. There could be no doubt. Ben was victorious! The bow, the prize bow, was now delivered to him; and Hal, as he looked at the whipcord, exclaimed, "How lucky this whipcord has been to you, Ben!"
"It is lucky perhaps you mean, that he took care of it," said Mr. Gresham.
"Ay," said Hal, "very true; he might well say, 'Waste not, want not'; it is a good thing to have two strings to one's bow."
[382]
Only a few of those who have written immediately for children have produced work distinguished by the same high artistic qualities found in the work of writers for readers of mature minds. Of these few one is Mrs. Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885). Edmund Gosse has said that of the numerous English authors who have written successfully on or for children only two "have shown a clear recollection of the mind of healthy childhood itself. . . . Mrs. Ewing in prose and Mr. Stevenson in verse have sat down with them without disturbing their fancies, and have looked into the world of 'make-believe' with the children's own eyes." They might lead, he thinks, "a long romp in the attic when nurse was out shopping, and not a child in the house should know that a grown-up person had been there." This is very high praise indeed and it suggests the reason for the immense popularity of "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life," "Daddy Darwin's Dovecot," "Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire," "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," and many another of the stories that delighted young readers when they first appeared in the pages of Aunt Judy's Magazine. The preëminence of "Jackanapes" among these many splendid stories may at least partly be accounted for by the fact that it grew out of the heat of a great conviction about life. Early in 1879 the news reached England of the death of the Prince Imperial of France, who fell while serving with the English forces in South Africa during the war with the Zulus. Perhaps the present-day reader needs to be reminded that the Prince Imperial was the only son of the ex-Empress Eugenie, who, with her husband Napoleon III had taken refuge in England after the loss of the French throne at the close of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Napoleon's death shortly after made the young prince a central figure in all considerations of the possible recouping of the fortunes of the Napoleonic dynasty. Full of the spirit of adventure and courage, he had joined the English forces to learn something of the soldier's profession. Unexpectedly ambushed, the prince was killed while the young officer who had been assigned to look after him escaped unhurt. There immediately ensued a wide discussion of the action of this young officer in saving himself and, apparently, leaving the Prince to his fate. Now, Mrs. Ewing was a soldier's wife and believed in the standard of honor which would naturally be reflected in military circles on such an incident. But hearing the rule of "each man for himself" so often emphasized in other circles, she was moved to write the protest against such a view which forms the central motive in "Jackanapes." There is no argument, however, no undue moralizing. With the finest art she embodies that central doctrine in a great faith that the saving of a man's life lies in his readiness to lose it. It was Satan who said, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." The pathos in the story is naturally inherent in the situation and is never emphasized for its own sake. Mrs. Ewing was always a thoroughly conscientious artist. She believed that the laws of artistic composition laid down by Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing applied with equal force to literature. "For example," says her brother in an article on her methods, "in the story of 'Jackanapes' the law of Principality is very clearly demonstrated. Jackanapes is the one important figure. The doting aunt, the weak-kneed but faithful Tony Johnson, the irascible general, the punctilious postman, the loyal boy-trumpeter, the silent major, and the ever-dear, faithful, loving Lollo,—all and each of them conspire with one consent to reflect forth the glory and beauty of the noble, generous, recklessly brave, and gently tender spirit of the hero 'Jackanapes.'" As to the laws of repetition and contrast: "Again and again is the village green introduced to the imagination. It is a picture of eternal peace and quietness, amid the tragedies of our ever-changing life which are enacted around it."