14
CHILDREN CHANGE
The first of the young men to come to Stonestudy followed an attraction which has never been quite definite to me. He was strongly educated, having studied art and life at Columbia and other places. His chief interest at first appeared to be in the oriental philosophy which he alleged to have found in my work. After that he intimated that he aspired to write. The second young man came from Dakota, also a college-bred. A teacher there wrote to me about him. I looked at some of his work, and I found in it potentialities of illimitable promise. I was not so excited as I would have been had I not met this discovery in other cases from the generation behind us. Their fleets are upon every sea.
The need of a living was somehow arranged, I worked with the two a while in the evening on short manuscript matters. In fact, the dollar-end has not pinched so far; and they help a while in the garden in the afternoons, designating the period, Track, as they named the little class after mid-day, Chapel. At first, I was in doubt as to whether they really belonged to the class. It was primarily designed for the younger minds—and I was unwilling to change that.
You would think it rather difficult—I know I did—to bring the work in one class for ages ranging from eleven to twice that. I said to the young men:
"Of course it is their hour. I don't want to bore you, but come if you like. Be free to discontinue, if what you get isn't worth the time. As for me—the young ones come first, and I am not yet ready for two classes."
They smiled. About a week later, they came in a half-hour late. It happened we had been having an exceptionally good hour.
"I would rather have you not come, if you cannot come on time," I said.
They sat down without any explanation. It was long afterward that I heard they had been busy about a trunk; that their delay had been unavoidable in getting it through customs, a barbarous and war-making inconvenience which cannot flourish much longer. And one day we went out into the garden together for the hoes, and the Dakota young man said:
"Chapel is the best hour of the day——"