He fell asleep, soothed by her kind voice, to awake when the sun was
bright on the window pane. Again he commanded, "Read to me, Cummie."
"And what chapter would my laddie like?" she asked. "Why, it's
daylight now," he answered; "I'm not afraid any longer; put away the
Bible, and go on with Ballantyne's story."
"I am one of the few people in the world who do not forget their own
lives," he boasted. His Garden of Verses testifies to the truth of
this statement. When he was a man over thirty, he bridged the gulf
of years, and wrote of the golden days of childhood. Not only do the
little people joy to hear his piping, but those who sit in the
elders' seat hearken to these happy songs of merry cheer coming to
them as echoes from the well-nigh forgotten past. His father often
sat by his sick-bed, and beguiled his small son from fears and pains
by tales "of ship-wreck on outlying iron skerries' pitiless
breakers, and great sea-lights, clothed in language apt, droll and
emphatic." His mother and Cummie read to him day and night.
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