But these children were different; then, they had a different mother, and as for Robert Louis, he certainly was a different proposition from that ever evolved from creation's matrix. He belongs to no class, evades the label, and fits into no pigeonhole.
The children never called him "father": he was always "Louis"—simply one of them. He married the family and they married him. He had captured their hearts in France by his story-telling, his flute-playing and his skilful talent with the jackknife. Now he was with them for all time, and he was theirs. It was the most natural thing in the world.
Mrs. Stevenson was the exact opposite of her husband in most things. She was quick, practical, accurate, and had a manual dexterity in a housekeeping way beyond the lot of most women. With all his half-invalid, languid, dilettante ways, Robert Louis adored the man or woman who could do things. Perhaps this was why his heart went out to those who go down to the sea in ships, the folk whose work is founded not on theories, but on absolute mathematical laws.
In their fourteen years of married life, Robert Louis never tired of watching Fanny at her housekeeping. "To see her turn the flapjacks by a simple twist of the wrist is a delight not soon to be forgotten, and my joy is to see her hanging clothes on the line in a high wind."
The folks at home labored under the hallucination that Robert Louis had married "a native Californian," and to them a "native" meant a half-breed Indian. The fact was that Fanny was born in Indiana, but this explanation only deepened the suspicion, for surely people who lived in Indiana are Indians—any one would know that! Cousin Robert made apologies and explanations, although none was needed, and placed himself under the ban of suspicion of being in league to protect Robert Louis, for the fact that the boys had always been quite willing to lie for each other had been very well known.
Mrs. Stevenson made good all that Robert Louis lacked. In physique she was small, but sturdy and strong.
Mentally she was very practical, very sensible, very patient. Then she had wit, insight, sympathy and that fluidity of spirit which belongs only to the Elect Few who know that nothing really matters much either way. Such a person does not contradict, set folks straight as to dates, and shake the red rag of wordy warfare, even in the interests of truth.
Then keeping house on Silverado Hill was only playing at "keep-house," and the way all hands entered into the game made it the genuine thing. People who keep house in earnest or do anything else in dead earnest are serious, but not sincere. Sincere people are those who can laugh—even laugh at themselves—and thus are they saved from ossification of the heart and fatty degeneration of the cerebrum. The Puritans forgot how to play, otherwise they would never have hanged the witches or gone after the Quakers with fetters and handcuffs. Uric acid and crystals in the blood are bad things, but they are worse when they get into the soul.
That most delightful story of "Treasure Island" was begun as a tale for Lloyd Osbourne, around the evening campfire. Then the hearers begged that it be written out, and so it was begun, one chapter a day. As fast as a chapter was written it was read in the evening to an audience that hung on every word and speculated as to what the characters would do next. All applauded, all criticized—all made suggestions as to what was "true," that is to say, as to what the parties actually did and said. "Treasure Island" is the best story of adventure ever written, and if anybody knows a better recipe for story-writing than the plan of writing just for fun, for some one else, it has not yet been discovered.
The miracle is that Robert Louis the Scotchman should have been so perfectly understood and appreciated by this little family from the other side of the world.