The Court of Boyville

by William Allen White

"All's out's in free."

Among the trees they scampered; into hay-stacks they wormed; over barrels and boxes they wiggled; they huddled under the sunflowers and the horse-weeds. It was a royal game, but as the moon rose it merged into pull-away. That game flourished for a while and transformed itself by an almost imperceptible evolution into a series of races down the dusty road. But when the moon's silver had marked itself upon the grass, the boys were lying prone on a hay-cock behind the royal castle. They chattered idly, and the murmur of their talk rose on the just-felt breeze that greets the rising moon, like the ripple of waters. But the chatter was only a seeming. For in truth the boys were absorbing the glory of the moonlight. And the undertones of their being were sounding in unison with the gentle music of the hour. Their souls—fresher from God than are the souls of men—were a-quiver with joy, and their lips babbled to hide their ecstasies. In Boyville it is a shameful thing to flaunt the secrets of the heart. As the night deepened, and the shy stars peeped at the bold moon, the boys let their prattle ebb into silence. Long they lay looking upward—with the impulse in their souls that prompted the eternal question that Adam left unanswered, that David cried in passion across his harp, that the wise men of the world have left locked in mystery—the question of the Whence, the Why, and the Whither.

As the moon climbed high into the arc of the Heavens, the company upon the hay-cock dispersed, one by one, till a solitary boy remained.

After he had gazed at the moon awhile a thrill of sheer madness set him to tumbling, head over heels, upon the fresh hay. Life was full of gladness for him, and his throat cramped with a delicious longing for he knew not what. He wondered vaguely if it were not something new and unimaginably good to eat. It was the nearest he could come to a defining of the longing. Of course no one can define it. It is that which quickens the blood of all young creatures—the rosebud, the meadow-lark, the dragon-fly, the colt, the boy and the maiden, bidding them glorify God with the show and the example of their comeliness. The boy rose from the hay and skipped under the trees, over the fantastic figures of the moon-spun carpet. He waved his arms, and there came to his throat a simple song, which he chanted croakingly, lest some one should hear him and laugh. He stopped, and sitting on a fence looked at a great white cloud that was mounting the western sky. His soul was listening to the faraway music from the breakers of the restless rising sea of ambition, and the rush of life and action, that were flooding into the distant rim of his consciousness. The music charmed him. Tears came to his eyes, he knew not why. But we, whom this mighty tide has carried away from that bourne whereon the boy's feet strayed so happily—we know why the far-seeing angels gave him tears.

A dog in some distant farm-yard was baying at the moon. A whining screech owl sent a faint shudder of superstitious fear over the boy. For a long time he sat on the fence absorbing the night sounds—the claque of the frogs, the burring of the crickets, the hum of the water on the mill-dam far down the valley, and the occasional call of some human voice, ringing like a golden bell in the hush of the night. It was after nine and the boy was deep in his trackless revery. A woman called,—

"Win-nee, Win-nee, oh, Winnie."

The spell upon him was almost too delicious to break; but he roused himself to reply,—

"Yessum. All right."

Then the mother's voice continued: "Now wash your feet, Winnie, and wipe 'em dry; don't come to bed with dirty feet."

Slowly the boy climbed to the earth. He shuffled through dew, but his feet were still too dirty. He stood in the tub of water by the pump, rubbing one foot with the other, and his eyes turned moonward. The thrall of the night caught him again. In a hazy stupor he sat on the kitchen step drying his feet. When he got up, Piggy Pennington gazed for a moment at a star—a pale star which hovered timidly over the chimney of the home which sheltered his Heart's Desire. With the lunacy upon him, he flung to the star a bashful kiss. Then he grinned foolishly and came to himself with a grunt, as he ran up stairs to his room. He was ashamed to face the south breeze that fanned his bed.