Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/412

 JAMES WHITCOMB BILEY 389 field, following the pursuits common to the youth of the town, finding companionship in his two brothers and two sisters — only one of whom, a sister, beside himself now survives of the family — and among the boys who appear in the verse of his later years ; attending school and indulging in the pranks and practices known to all village youngsters. This freckle-faced, fair-haired lad was by no means a model pupil in school, but was what a modem teacher would class as a ** problem.** Yet, even then, his peculiar character- istics were manifesting themselves. He was shy, sensitive, self-conscious, lacking certain qualities that people call ^ ^ prac- tical," as skill in mathematics and an adaptability to routine ; and possessing some traits that people did not understand and shook their heads over — a disposition to dream and idle the days away and an unconquerable distaste for the fixed school ** system** of his day. His taste was for variety, for dipping into books here and there, for reading more interest- ing literature than text-books, for wandering at will The meadow larks trill and the bumble bees drone.** Echoes come down from that by-gone time which indicate that he was something of a trial to his teachers, who did not comprehend that this child mind that would not be interested in the lesson of the text-book was feeling its way to more im- portant things and storing up a folk lore and absorbing na- ture *s secrets that were afterward transmuted into song and story by the alembic of his fancy. For all of his boy companions he must have been a lonely little fellow, certainly one who took few into his confidence. His mother was sympathetic and comprehending, but she died while he was yet a child and no one ever took her place. To that mother he has paid many a tender tribute in his verse. Of her he says : "0 rarely soft the touches of her hands. As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands.** But this boy of many gifts, stombling his way as best he
 * Where over the meadow, in sunshine and shadow.