Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/311



NCLE BOBBY was a poet. That was why he had made a failure of life; that was why his hair had grown gray in an un equal contest with the realities of this prosaic world.

Uncle Bobby was a poet. That too was why his latter days were days of pleasantness and peace. Life, like a wise mother who has disciplined her child, took him gently by the hand and gave him of her best and sweetest. For the best and sweetest is not a matter of circumstance—it is not even success and love. It is being in tune. And Uncle Bobby was in tune like an instrument whose strings have yielded to a master hand. To-day he was sitting in his "yacht," as he had dubbed his tiny row-boat, his oars balanced idly, floating with the tide up the saltwater creek behind Pleasant Point. A stranger might not have guessed that he was apoet. From his gray felt hat slouched comfortably against the sun, down to the huge rubber waders encasing feet and legs, there was nothing æsthetic to be