Part 6

PARADISE REVISED

Playing hymn-tunes day and night On a harp may be all right For the grown-ups; but for me, I do wish that heaven could be Sort o' like a circus, run So a kid could have some fun!

There I'd not play harps, but horns When I chased the unicorns-- Magic tubes with pistons greasy, Slides that pushed and pulled out easy, Cylinders of snaky brass Where the fingers like to fuss, Polished like a looking-glass, Ending in a blunderbuss.

I would ride a horse of steel Wound up with a ratchet-wheel. Every beast I'd put to rout Like the man I read about. I would singe the leopard's hair, Stalk the vampire and the adder, Drive the werewolf from his lair, Make the mad gorilla madder. Needle-guns my work should do. But, if beasts got closer to, I would pierce them to the marrow With a barbed and poisoned arrow, Or I'd whack 'em on the skull Till my scimiter was dull.

If these weapons didn't work, With a kris or bowie-knife, Poniard, assegai, or dirk, I would make them beg for life;-- Spare them, though, if they'd be good And guard me from what haunts the wood-- From those creepy, shuddery sights That come round a fellow nights-- Imps that squeak and trolls that prowl, Ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl, Headless goblins with lassoes, Scarlet witches worse than those, Flying dragon-fish that bellow So as most to scare a fellow....

There, as nearly as I could, I would live like Robin Hood, Taking down the mean and haughty, Getting plunder from the naughty To reward all honest men Who should seek my outlaw's den.

When I'd wearied of these pleasures I'd go hunt for hidden treasures-- In no ordinary way, Pirates' luggers I'd waylay; Board them from my sinking dory, Wade through decks of gore and glory, Drive the fiends, with blazing matchlock, Down below, and snap the hatch-lock.

Next, I'd scud beneath the sky-land, Sight the hills of Treasure Island, Prowl and peer and prod and prise, Till there burst upon my eyes Just the proper pirate's freight: Gold doubloons and pieces of eight!

Then--the very best of all-- Suddenly a stranger tall Would appear, and I'd forget That we hadn't ever met. And with cap upthrown I'd greet him (Turning from the plunder, yellow) And I'd hurry fast to meet him, For he'd be the very fellow Who, I think, invented fun-- Robert Louis Stevenson.

The enthusiasms of this barbaric period never died. They grew up, instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze--why, my life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables in the cellars and attics, the chimney-pieces and desert islands of the mind, and secret attempts to coin them into currency.

And so I might go on to tell of my enthusiasms for no end of other things like reading, modeling, folk-lore, cathedrals, writing, pictures, and the theater. Then there is the long story of that enthusiasm called Love, of Friendship its twin, and their elder brother, Religion, and their younger sister, Altruism. And travel and adventure and so on. But no! It is, I believe, a misdemeanor to obtain attention under false pretenses. If I have caught the reader's eye by promising to illustrate in outline a new method of writing autobiography, I must not abuse his confidence by putting that method into practice. So, with a regret almost equal to that of Lewis Carroll's famous Bellman--

I skip twenty years--

and close with my latest enthusiasm.

Confirmed wanderers that we were, my wife and I had rented a house for the winter in a Massachusetts coast village and had fallen somewhat under the spell of the place. Nevertheless, we had decided to move on soon--to try, in fact, another trip through Italy. Our friendly neighbors urged us to buy land up the "back lane" instead, and build and settle down. We knew nothing of this region, however, and scarcely heard them.

But they were so insistent that one day we ventured up the back lane at dusk and began to explore the woods. It grew dark and we thought of turning back. Then it began to grow light again. A full moon was climbing up through the maples, inviting further explorations. We pushed through a dense undergrowth and presently were in a grove of great white pines. There was a faint sound of running water, and suddenly we came upon an astonishing brook--wide, swift, and musical. We had not suspected the existence of such a brook within a dozen leagues. It was over-arched by tall oaks and elms, beeches, tupelos, and maples. The moonbeams were dancing in the ripples and on the floating castles of foam.

"What a place for a study!"

"Yes; a log cabin with a big stone fireplace."

The remarks came idly, but our eyes met and held. Moved by one impulse we turned from the stream and remarked what bosh people will sometimes talk, and discussed the coming Italian trip as we moved cautiously among the briers. But when we came once more to the veteran pines, they seemed more glamorous than ever in the moonlight, especially one that stood near a large holly, apart from the rest--a three-prong lyrical fellow--and his opposite, a burly, thickset archer, bending his long-bow into a most exquisite curve. The fragrant pine needles whispered. The brook lent its faint music.

"Quick! We had better get away!"

A forgotten lumber road led us safe from briers up a hill. Out of a dense oak grove we suddenly emerged upon the more open crest. Our feet sank deep in moss.

"Look," I said.

Over the heads of the high forest trees below shimmered a mile of moonlit marshes, and beyond them a gleam--perhaps from some vessel far at sea, perhaps even from a Provincetown lighthouse.

"Yes, but look!"

At a touch I faced around and beheld, crowning the hill, a stately company of red cedars, comely and dense and mysterious as the cypresses of Tivoli, and gloriously drenched in moonlight.

"But what a place for a house!"

"Let's give up Italy," was the answer, "and make this wood our home."

By instinct and training we were two inveterate wanderers. Never had we possessed so much as a shingle or a spoonful of earth. But the nest-building enthusiasm had us at last. Our hands met in compact. As we strolled reluctantly homeward to a ten-o'clock dinner we talked of road-making, swamps, pneumatic water-systems, the nimbleness of dollars, and mountains of other difficulties. And we agreed that the only kind of faith which can easily remove mountains is the faith of the enthusiast.

THE AUTO-COMRADE