Tom paused. In his eyes there was that wonderful melting again, and a joy so deep and pure that it made my heart sing.
"It is all meant," he added. "All is meant, but men do not know that the Master is watching. For ages and ages the Master waits so patiently for his friend to come."
"His friend?" I asked.
"Yes. Souls are always comrades. The Master is greater than you are only because he has been longer on the path. He started before you did. He has come up through all that we have. Just think how long my Master has been waiting for me, and I have not even found Him yet."
I looked at the little body of him, at the innocence of the eyes and mouth, all untouched by the world—so pure and yet crying out in pain because he had taken so long on the quest.... His eighth year brought Tom into regular boyhood. The young brain, always before silently giving way to intuition, began to speak for itself. This stage is as important perhaps, but not so beautiful as when the hushedness and glowing of the Unseen touches a child. Here we turned from Tom, and the things that creep into the heart of almost every boy of the same age, crept into Tom's heart. He forgot the fairies—they ceased to call. He forgot the wide roads of peace and purity. He seemed to forget that the Master was still waiting so patiently on the hill for him to open and receive. But we knew better than that.
The development of the brain always robs a child of the inner glowing for a time, but it all comes back again with a great dimension added; the instrument is then keen and direct—a power in itself. We turned from Tom—a young brain standing alone, very conscious of itself, is anything but interesting. At the time we were in the turmoil of departure, each of us thinking in different ways about the long journey just ahead, and the wonder of being at last in California. Tom was more or less his own director those days.
He fell into crime, looted the house of a friend, denied everything. He was sent to his quarters to stay until he found himself again. It took a week exactly, but he found a deep happiness in being alone in the little room before he left it. It did him as much good as the long days in the sunlight ever could; he came out pale and wide eyed, and the breath of a soul was in the room when he entered.
One day out of his long week, I went to him. The sun had gone down behind a nest of grey clouds. Dusk had almost deepened into darkness, but there was no light in his room. He sat there, his eyes staring ahead of him, his hands folded tightly in his lap. I walked in quietly and sat down beside him. I was not even noticed; he was lost in his thought. At last I asked,
"Tom, what did you find so interesting in that cheap business?"
"I haven't found out yet," he said grimly.