“I’m not terribly old,” she went on, ignoring his effort to give a lighter tone to the talk; “and I don’t pretend to be wise; but life can’t be just dreams and flowers: I see that! I wish it were that way, for everything would be so simple and easy and every one would live happy ever after.”
“I’m afraid that isn’t quite true,” said the Poet. “I can’t think of anything more disagreeable than half an hour spent in a big hothouse full of roses. I’ve made the experiment occasionally; and if all creation lived in such an atmosphere, we should be a pale, stifled, anæmic race. And think of the stone-throwing there would be if we all lived in glass houses!”
She smiled at this; and their eyes met in a look that marked the beginnings of a friendship.
“There’s Marjorie, and I must go!” she cried suddenly. “Isn’t she quite the prettiest of them all in her paper cap! We haven’t really decided anything, have we?” she asked, lingering a moment. “And I haven’t even fed you very well, for which Mrs. Waring will scold me. But I hope you’re going to like me a little bit—even if I am a heathen!”
“We were old friends when the stars first sang together! Something tells me that I shall see you soon again—very soon; but you have not got rid of me yet; I crave the honor of an introduction to Marjorie.”
In a moment the Poet stood with Marjorie close at his side, her hand thrust warmly and contentedly into his, while all the other children pressed close about. He was telling them one of the stories in rhyme for which he was famous, and telling it with an art that was not less a gift from Heaven than the genius that had put the words into his ink-pot. Thousands of children had heard that poem at their mothers’ knees, but to-day it seemed new, even to those of the attentive young auditors whose lips moved with his, repeating the quaint, whimsical phrases and musical lines that seem, indeed, to be the spontaneous creation of any child who lisps them.
And when he began to retreat, followed by the clamorous company with demands for more, he slipped away through the low garden gate, leaned upon it and looked down upon them with feigned surprise as though he had never seen them before.
“How remarkable!” he exclaimed, lingering to parley with them. “Tell you another story! Who has been telling stories! I just stopped to look at the garden and all the flowers jumped up and became children—children calling for stories! How very remarkable! And all the brown-eyed children are pansies and all the blue-eyed ones are roses,—really this is the most remarkable thing I ever heard of!”
They drew closer as he whispered:—
“You must do just what I tell you—will you promise, every single boy and girl?”