Boy of My Heart

by Marie Connor Leighton

"You funny Big Yeogh Wough! Nobody would expect anyone who looks like you to talk like that," he said mischievously.

"You wise little boy!" I laughed. "No, I suppose they wouldn't. People always make mistakes like that, you know. One day the world will come to see that preachers may look very bright and easy-going—just as motherly women with mob caps and three chins are not necessarily the best persons to trust to for seeing that sheets are properly aired. Now, good night. You must go to sleep."

I went to the window and opened it, placed the screen by his bed just where it would shield him from the draught and from the light, and went towards the door. As I reached it, he called me back.

"Mother, do you think we shall ever have a war with Germany?"

"A war with Germany? Why, yes, I suppose we are pretty sure to have one some day. But whatever makes you ask that now?"

"Oh, it was only because I heard one of the masters talking about it!"

"Well, I don't think you need trouble about it just yet, anyhow. The best thing you can do is to sleep well and eat well and work well, so as to grow up a fine man and be able to do something worth doing in that war when it comes—if it ever does come."

When I had left him I stood for some minutes shaking the door gently to make sure that it was properly shut and that he would not be in a draught all night.

I've always had this curious difficulty in realising actual things, such as whether I have shut a door or not, or whether I have put a jewel away in its case properly. It has always been quite easy for me to realise unseen things—such as a death or a fire that has not yet occurred, or any sort of scene at which I have not been present. I am sure that I sometimes see these more vividly than people who have actually witnessed them with their bodily eyes. But when it comes to ordinary everyday facts—why, I have stood irresolutely by a trunk ten or fifteen minutes many and many a time, lifting the lid up and down in order to make absolutely sure that something that I had put away in under the lid was actually there and had not jumped out again.