3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure, the merciful, the peacemakers.
4. Suffer the little children to come unto me.
"You see," he added wistfully, "the churches have to preach a heap of doctrines piled twenty centuries high—with truth squashed flat beneath. The poor are very worrisome, too, and there's such a lot of heathen to convert. Why, all of our educated people belong to societies for reforming their neighbors, and yet—and yet—well, fairies have a nicer time than curates."
Frognall End, where my saint is curate-in-charge, is on the river near Windsor, and there I went to live with Baby David. It was there I learned that heartache is a cultivated plant not known along the hedge-rows, that peace may be found as long as the gorse blooms, that love grows lustiest where it has least soil. For the rest, please see the Reverend Jared Nisted's Fairyland which is full of most important information for all who are weary and heavy-laden. Its text is from the Logia of Christ: "Raise the stone, and thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood and I am there."
From the first my Heaven-born was interested in milk, later in a growing number of worldly things, but it was not until last winter by the fireside that we really had serious tales all about Wonderland. It's a difficult place to reach, but when you get down the cliff, and feel your neck to make quite sure it's not broken, you come to the witch who has a wooden leg. She lives in the Dust House, where the Dust Fairies want to sleep, only she will worry them with her broom. When they are worried, they dance with the Sunbeam Fairy who comes in through the window, and never breaks the glass.
There's a fairy mare called Jones, who lost her Christian name in a fit of temper, and always searches for it with her hind legs. There's a fairy bear who is not a truly grizzly, though he does live in a grizzly bear skin even when it's ever-so-hot weather. He's a great hunter, too, and likes sportsmen so much that they keep getting fewer, and fewer, and FEWER. The last sportsman was a fairy Doctor called McGee, who perched all day long in a tree, like the fowls-of-the-air, practising bird-calls, while the fairy bear sat underneath taking care of his rifle.
Wonderland is full of stories, especially about Mr. Man. When Mr. Man was stolen away by robbers, and tied up with fiddle-strings in a ferry-house, well—David flatly refused to go to bed until we'd come to the ferry across Dream River.
David's dog came of an alliance between two noble families, so his name is Whiskers Retriever-Dachshund, Esq., P.T.O. David's cat, who died expensively in a pail of cream, was Mrs. Bull Durham. Ginger was a squirrel in the garden, and the dago was a badger who lived a long way off beyond the grumpy cow. Dog, cat, squirrel and badger were all of them robbers, but David would have been quite wretched if he had caught them doing anything dishonest.
Did I mention Mr. Man? He was a hero who lived in fairyland, and didn't believe in fairies, who spoke with a slow, sweet, Texan drawl, who loved and protected all living creatures except politicians, who believed in God, in Mother England, and in Uncle Sam, and who always wrote long letters to his mother. David said his funny prayers for mother, and Whiskers, and all kind friends "and make me good like Mr. Man in Wonderland. Amen. Now, tell me some wobbers, mummie."
Although David has decided to be a tram conductor, he still takes some little interest in other walks of life. Once on the tow-path he asked an old gentleman who was fishing, what he was fishing for, and got the nice reply: "I often wonder." And it was on this path beside the Thames, that one day last November he made a big friendship. His nurse was passing a few remarks with a young man who asked the way to my house, and baby went ahead pursuing his lawful occasions. Curious to know what it felt like to be a real fish, he was stepping into the river to see about it, when the young man interfered.