“I am sure you did, Tommy,” said Phœbe. She saw that the child was ready to cry at his fear that perhaps Phœbe did not understand him. “I know you saw the Face. I have seen such a beautiful Face more than once.”
Tommy drew a deep breath. “It was the loveliest face you could think about. It was just shiny, and it had deep, deep kind eyes, and it looked right up at me and smiled. Oh, I felt my heart grow big all at once, and I was just as still as could be for fear the beautiful thing would go away. But the first thing I knew you laid your hand on my shoulder and I sort of felt as if I was just waking up. But I know the face was real and true!”
“Of course it was, Tommy.”
“It makes a little boy feel very strange to have such things happen,” continued Tommy. “But it’s just like my very own thoughts. Sometimes I think and think and think until the air seems all shiny, and then I feel oh, so happy! So very, very happy! But I never can make it into words.”
“No, dearie, you can’t make it into words now, but you will be able to some day. Do you know what I think? I think that nature made you a Poet when you were born, and so, as you grow, the beautiful thoughts will grow and grow as you do, until some time, when you are a big man, you will be able to tell all that you have thought about, all the lovely dreams, if you call them dreams, that you ever have had, and all these lovely shining things will grow into beautiful words and be printed in books. Then they will be read by men and women and little boys and girls, too, and it will help them all to be good and more happy than they ever were before.”
Tommy gazed with loving, wondering eyes while Phœbe spoke. He felt as though he understood all she meant as he watched her face. For while she talked it absolutely shone and she looked as though she saw, far in the distance, little Tommy, grown to be a man and a wonderful poet.
After a while Tommy said, suddenly: “Oh, Phœbe, I know what the lovely face in the pool was!”
“What, dearie?”
“Don’t you remember the other day when all us children were in your house and you were telling us those nice stories? Don’t you remember how you told us there was a shining boy or girl in each one of us? I remember all you told us about it and you said it was the real, true self. Our own best self; our bestest goodie. I believe the face in the pool was my bestest goodie; it must have been!”
“Perhaps it was, Tommy. But why do you say ‘bestest goodie’?”