Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/20

8 Besides, she tells lies. She has two babies, little brats that squawl. I hate her.

I don't mind the work much, especially the history. Latin's rather rot, and so is geography and arithmetic. I like poetry best: we have a book full of it. The first poem is called 'The Universal Prayer,' by A. Pope. The one I like best is called 'A Psalm of Life,' by H. W. Longfellow.

One Saturday night when Cookie was bathing me—you see, that particular night I was rather funny, having been out on the Heath alone—(of course I should have been punished, perhaps licked, if I'd been caught; we were never allowed out except we got leave, in twos)—and thinking about all sorts of things, and particularly that I should die before I was twenty. So, as Cookie was bathing me, I asked her if she knew what

For the soul is dead that slumbers And things are not what they seem,'

meant. She didn't—Then I asked her about the other things in it, one by one; but she didn't seem to understand them much either.

Well, after I'd gone up to the dormitory (I was first that night), while the others were up at prayers, she came in quite quietly as I was lying looking at the white ceiling, and sat down on the bed by me and took out a little round hot pasty, and said I was to eat it while she was cutting my nails. So she drew back the cubicle curtain, and I got out of the clothes, and she began to cut my nails. And while I was sitting in that way, eating the hot pasty, I thought I'd like to tell her the 'Psalm of Life': so I asked her if she'd care to hear it. She said 'Yes.' So I began to tell it her. She'd finished cutting by the time I'd got about half through, and sat with my foot in her lap, looking at me, till I'd done it. Then we heard them coming down from prayers: so she told me to jump into bed, and tucked me up and gave me a kiss, and said:

'I hope it won't make you conceited, Master Leicester, but you're the best-looking of the boarders. And I hope you'll be happy.'