Boy of My Heart

by Marie Connor Leighton

Fluttering my nimble toes,

While I'm waiting, weary waiting,

For de sossiest little girl I knows...."

Then I stopped, with my fingers on the keys of the piano, and thought:

"What if indeed there were a railway accident and he were killed? How should I bear it?"

And then I found myself singing something else:

"Fear no more the heat of the sun nor the furious winter's rages."

"Yes," I went on thinking, "after all, if he were killed in a railway accident or in some other sudden way, I should at least never have to feel afraid of anything for him again. I should not have to wonder how he would front the world if anything were to happen to his father and to me. I should know that the brave little heart and the joyous little soul behind the sad brown eyes were safe."

But what was the use of giving myself over like this to the worship of a child?

It was a good thing for me that just about this time he began to get more matter-of-fact. Anyhow, he was less of a picture and more of an ordinary rascal of a boy when, soon after his thirteenth birthday, we took him with us on a little journey by sea to Russia.