He threw himself luxuriously on the soft green carpet, and felt in his pocket for a pipe. It was not until he had carefully filled it that he found he had no matches.
“This,” he said, “is really terrible. What is to be done?”
“I’ll run off and find some one,” exclaimed Wynne, enthusiastic at the chance of rendering a service. But Uncle Clem restrained him.
“No, no,” he said, “we must think of more ingenious methods than that. You and I are alone on a desert island, but we possess a watch. Casting our eyes around we discover a rotten bough. Look!” He broke a little fallen branch that lay in the grass beside his hand. “The inside you see is mere tinder. Now we will roll out into the sun and operate.”
It was some while before the concentrated ray from the watch-glass produced a spark upon the wood.
“Blow for all you are worth,” cried Uncle Clem. “Splendid—it is beginning to catch! Oh! blow again, Friday—see it smoulders! One more blow—a gale this time. Oh, excellent Man Friday!—what a lucky fellow Robinson Crusoe is!”
He dropped the ember into his pipe and sucked furiously. At last tiny puffs of rewarding smoke began to emerge from his lips. His features relaxed and he grinned.
“We have conquered,” he declared—“earned the reward for our labours! But the odd thing is that now the pipe is alight I am not at all sure if I really want it.”
Every boy must possess a hero—it is the lodestar of his being. He can lie awake at night, happy in the mere reflection of that wonderful being’s prowess. In imagination, enemies, one by one, are arraigned before the protecting hero, who, with the justice of gods admixed with a finely-tempered satire, judges their sins and sends them forth repentant. But this is not all. He can lift the soul to empiric heights, and open at a touch new and wonderful doors of thought and action. He can enthuse, inspire, illumine, refresh old ideals—inspirit new—make dark become light, and light so brilliant that the eyes are dazzled by the whiteness thereof.
The hero occurs by circumstance or deed, and his responsibility is boundless. He must think as a king thinks when the eyes of the nation rest upon him—he must tread all ways with a sure foot and proud bearing—chest out and head high. He must not slip upon the peel that lies in the highway, nor turn aside to escape its menace; he must crush it beneath his heel as he strides along, a smile upon his lips, his cane swinging—the veriest picture of majesty and resource.