Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/340

 to withstand the wildest storms. In a word, I shall tell the story of a little child who had passed only the second year of its age, of a child that was noted neither for any bodily beauty nor for any mental abilities, nor distinguished in any way from millions of other children of the same age.

Is that likely to interest anybody? Will the “adventures” of such a little creature attract any one? Can we speak at all of any “adventures” that would stir the mind of the reader?

Hardly. And yet there are few mortals whose life has been as strange as that of this little baby, who, not having yet any notion of life, is sitting in the thick, high, soft grass under a low bush of lilacs by the churchyard wall whither it has just come toddling from that hut,—its home.

The hot rays of a June sun, nearly setting, play in the most varied hues on the luxuriant grass, here covering it with golden, yellow, or orange colors, there allowing the glittering green to display its various shades, from the shimmering evergreen to a greenish-brown.

For all these and other things the child has no sense; it plays in the grass wholly at random, without any purpose, without thinking; it even seems that it is not playing, that its little soul has not developed sense enough for the most primitive play. It stretches out its little hand for single stalks of grass that are higher than others, or that in some way draw its attention, as though it would pick them, but drops them forthwith. It looks around, and then looks forward or into space, and again it plays with its little hands in the grass or with one little nail awkwardly digs the ground; in a word, it attempts to play, not yet knowing how.

It is a plump, light-haired little girl in a short slip, with its border bemired, loosened at her throat so that you may see the little sunken, naked breast. The expression of her face is indefinite at first sight, but a certain inexpressibly bitter line around its full lips and the dark blue, dreamy, and gloomy eyes give the little face the almost painful expression often marking children who have been born in grief and sorrow.

Still it seems that her little soul has not yet been clouded with