A moment’s silence and the gathering quietly melted away to their happy homes, while the bright silver moon shed a splendid radiance over the peaceful scene.
CHAPTER III C. B.’s Childhood
The story of a boy growing from his birth to manhood in our centres of civilization cannot fail to be of interest if properly told, principally because of the thousand and one dangers that beset him in that perilous journey. This is the case, no matter how well or how ill brought up he may be, peril encompasses him round about, visible as well as invisible, peril from which no amount of care can adequately protect him. Indeed the care that is often bestowed has the effect of rendering the child’s life a burden to him, especially if he be brought up at home. Moreover, if we are foolish enough to believe one thousandth part of what we read about food and drink and the deadly microbes and bacteria that lie in wait for us everywhere, we should certainly perish of worry or become, as faddists always do become, a misery to ourselves and a nuisance to all around us.
But here on Norfolk Island the child had every chance. And in telling of C. B. I am only taking the ordinary type: he had no advantages over his fellows. Fed by his mother alone, who had never known a day’s illness in her life, never knowing the taste of drugs, living in the open air without ever being pampered by tight clothing of any kind, never too hot, never too cold; how could he help growing up to the age when he could run about, without an ache or a pain, a sturdy, perfectly developed, perfectly healthy child? Of course he could swim as soon as he could walk, that to any one who knows the island goes without saying, and as soon as he could toddle down to the shore with the other children, spent, as they did, quite half of his time in the sea. The food given him was of the simplest: fruit and vegetables, milk and fish, very little meat, because it was extremely scarce for one thing, and for another, these gentle people only hunt when necessity drives, and never kill a domestic animal if it can be avoided.
So this child of love and prayer grew and waxed strong, a joy and delight to his parents, and a pleasure to all the community, as all the children were. In exuberant animal delight he and his companions climbed the trees and the mountains, tumbled about in the surf like so many dolphins, with never an anxious or fussy parent to say “don’t.” Cuts, scratches, bruises they gained in plenty, all treated in the simplest way and all getting cured in almost magically quick time, as do the hurts of animals and savages. And it must never be forgotten that these people led the perfectly natural lives of savages without any of the savage vices, that they knew and practised the virtues of civilization without its follies and crimes; what then could be expected in the result but perfect health and happiness?
With all this boisterous enjoyment of childhood the simple education that the venerable McCoy was able to impart was not neglected. Reading, writing and the first four rules of arithmetic were soundly taught, and by Grace the beautiful accomplishment of singing through the tonic sol-fa method. They were altogether a singing people; it was ingrained, so that this took no trouble to teach. Beyond this in the way of education there was nothing except that the reading of the Bible was encouraged, not as a means of storing up virtue by reading so many verses or chapters, but for the pleasure and profit of seeing what God had said to His people. And this, with the exception of a few well-worn books, such as the standard poets, Dickens, Thackeray and Miss Wetherell, comprised their reading. None of the children were compelled to read as a task. When once they had learned to read they were allowed to read or not just as it pleased them.
Under such pleasant auspices as this what wonder was it that our hero at sixteen was as near being perfect in body and mind as the most exacting parent could wish. True, he would have been plucked at an examination for the fourth standard in any Board-school, but if he was ignorant of much school learning as Board-school boys know at home, he was also ignorant of a great number of other things, of practically all the evil knowledge acquired by our children in great cities in spite of all our efforts. And on the physical side, being a child of nature, there could be no comparison between him and city children of whatever class imaginable. His whole life, as was that of his companions, boys and girls alike, was spent in training, unconsciously, and so he was always fit for any of those manly exercises that the young human animal rightly loves. He could not play cricket or football, but he could swim and dive all day, could climb the tallest tree in the island like a monkey, could run from the level to the top of a three-thousand-foot hill without distress, and could not swear or lie, having never known any occasion for either.