Children's Literature Part 107

Now my little children, You who read this song, Don't you see what trouble Comes of thinking wrong?

And can't you take a warning From their dreadful fate Who began their thinking When it was too late?

Don't think there's always safety Where no danger shows, Don't suppose you know more Than anybody knows; But when you're warned of ruin, Pause upon the brink, And don't go under headlong, 'Cause you didn't think.

281

THE LEAK IN THE DIKE

A Story of Holland

PHOEBE CARY

The good dame looked from her cottage At the close of the pleasant day, And cheerily called to her little son Outside the door at play: "Come, Peter, come! I want you to go, While there is light to see, To the hut of the blind old man who lives Across the dike, for me; And take these cakes I made for him-- They are hot and smoking yet; You have time enough to go and come Before the sun is set."

Then the good-wife turned to her labor, Humming a simple song, And thought of her husband, working hard At the sluices all day long; And set the turf a-blazing, And brought the coa.r.s.e black bread; That he might find a fire at night, And find the table spread.

And Peter left the brother, With whom all day he had played, And the sister who had watched their sports In the willow's tender shade; And told them they'd see him back before They saw a star in sight, Though he wouldn't be afraid to go In the very darkest night!

For he was a brave, bright fellow, With eye and conscience clear; He could do whatever a boy might do, And he had not learned to fear.

Why, he wouldn't have robbed a bird's nest, Nor brought a stork to harm, Though never a law in Holland Had stood to stay his arm!

And now, with his face all glowing, And eyes as bright as the day With the thoughts of his pleasant errand, He trudged along the way; And soon his joyous prattle Made glad a lonesome place-- Alas! if only the blind old man Could have seen that happy face!

Yet he somehow caught the brightness Which his voice and presence lent; And he felt the suns.h.i.+ne come and go As Peter came and went.

And now, as the day was sinking, And the winds began to rise, The mother looked from her door again, Shading her anxious eyes; And saw the shadows deepen And birds to their homes come back, But never a sign of Peter Along the level track.

But she said: "He will come at morning, So I need not fret or grieve-- Though it isn't like my boy at all To stay without my leave."

But where was the child delaying?

On the homeward way was he, And across the dike while the sun was up An hour above the sea.

He was stopping now to gather flowers, Now listening to the sound, As the angry waters dashed themselves Against their narrow bound.

"Ah! well for us," said Peter, "That the gates are good and strong, And my father tends them carefully, Or they would not hold you long!

You're a wicked sea," said Peter; "I know why you fret and chafe; You would like to spoil our lands and homes; But our sluices keep you safe!"

But hark! Through the noise of waters Comes a low, clear, trickling sound; And the child's face pales with terror, And his blossoms drop to the ground.

He is up the bank in a moment, And stealing through the sand, He sees a stream not yet so large As his slender, childish hand.

'_Tis a leak in the dike!_ He is but a boy, Unused to fearful scenes; But, young as he is, he has learned to know The dreadful thing that means.

_A leak in the dike!_ The stoutest heart Grows faint that cry to hear, And the bravest man in all the land Turns white with mortal fear.

For he knows the smallest leak may grow To a flood in a single night; And he knows the strength of the cruel sea When loosed in its angry might.

And the boy! He has seen the danger, And, shouting a wild alarm, He forces back the weight of the sea With the strength of his single arm!

He listens for the joyful sound Of a footstep pa.s.sing nigh; And lays his ear to the ground, to catch The answer to his cry.

And he hears the rough winds blowing, And the waters rise and fall, But never an answer comes to him, Save the echo of his call.

He sees no hope, no succor, His feeble voice is lost; Yet what shall he do but watch and wait, Though he perish at his post!

So, faintly calling and crying Till the sun is under the sea; Crying and moaning till the stars Come out for company; He thinks of his brother and sister, Asleep in their safe warm bed; He thinks of his father and mother, Of himself as dying--and dead; And of how, when the night is over, They must come and find him at last: But he never thinks he can leave the place Where duty holds him fast.

The good dame in the cottage Is up and astir with the light, For the thought of her little Peter Has been with her all night.

And now she watches the pathway, As yester eve she had done; But what does she see so strange and black Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors are bearing between them Something straight to her door; Her child is coming home, but not As he ever came before!

"He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!"

And the startled father hears, And comes and looks the way she looks, And fears the thing she fears: Till a glad shout from the bearers Thrills the stricken man and wife-- "Give thanks, for your son has saved our land, And G.o.d has saved his life!"

So, there in the morning suns.h.i.+ne They knelt about the boy; And every head was bared and bent In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still, When the sea roars like a flood, Their boys are taught what a boy can do Who is brave and true and good.

For every man in that country Takes his son by the hand, And tells him of little Peter, Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero, Remembered through the years: But never one whose name so oft Is named with loving tears.

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle, And told to the child on the knee, So long as the dikes of Holland Divide the land from the sea!

The world's greatest writer of verse for children, Robert Louis Stevenson, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. After he was twenty-five years old he spent much of the rest of his short life traveling in search of health. From 1889 to the time of his death in 1894 he resided in Samoa. The verses given here (Nos. 282-295) are taken from his famous book, _A Child's Garden of Verses_, which, says Professor Saintsbury, "is, perhaps, the most perfectly natural book of the kind. It was supplemented later by other poems for children; and some of his work outside this, culminating in the widely known epitaph

Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill,

has the rarely combined merits of simplicity, sincerity, music, and strength." One of the best of Stevenson's poems for children outside the _Child's Garden of Verses_ is the powerfully dramatic story called _Heather Ale_.

In attempting to solve the secret of Stevenson's supremacy, Edmund Gosse calls attention to the "curiously candid and confidential att.i.tude of mind" in these poems, to the "extraordinary clearness and precision with which the immature fancies of eager childhood" are reproduced, and particularly, to the fact that they give us "a transcript of that child-mind which we have all possessed and enjoyed, but of which no one, except Mr.

Stevenson, seems to have carried away a photograph." It is this ability to hand on a photographic transcript of the child's way of seeing things that, according to Mr. Gosse, puts Stevenson in a cla.s.s which contains only two other members, Hans Christian Andersen in nursery stories, and Juliana Horatia Ewing in the more realistic prose tale. Children find expressed in these poems their own active fancies. It has been objected to them that the child pictured there is a lonely child, but every child, like every mature person, has an inner world of dreams and experiences in which he delights now and then to dwell. The presence of the qualities mentioned put at least two of Stevenson's prose romances among the most splendid adventure stories for young people, _Treasure Island_ and _Kidnapped_. Perhaps no book is more popular among pupils of the seventh and eighth grades than the former. It has been called a "sublimated dime novel," that is, it has all the decidedly attractive features of the "dime novel" plus the fine art of story-telling which is always lacking in that sensational type of story.

282

WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A child should always say what's true, And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table; At least as far as he is able.

283

THE COW

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The friendly cow all red and white, I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might, To eat with apple-tart.

She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pleasant open air, The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pa.s.s And wet with all the showers, She walks among the meadow gra.s.s And eats the meadow flowers.