Part 14

The father, coming in glowingly from the freshness of the winter day, was dazed by that militant figure and its immediate challenge, “None done, papa!” He hardly knew how to answer whatever demand was thereby made upon him. No parent relishes the rôle of Goliath! But love aided him. He warmed his hands at the blaze, and seizing the belligerent, tossed him high in the air many times, knowing that Samuel had never yet had enough of that sport. Then he sat down before the fire, the boy in his arms, and poured out a thousand foolish tendernesses over the seven spirals, and the shining ridgepole. The sensitive child caught the shadow of anxiety, even as it was vanishing from his father’s face. What sorrow was this? His own sorrows had been two: a work of art undone, a first whipping. His father was the one who gave, not took whippings; his father’s sorrow was therefore about the work of art. Ah, that was something he himself could well understand, and perhaps console; though the cat was unfinished, there was many another work not yet begun. He laid a valiant hand on his blue woollen chest, and declared, “Self make more!” Perhaps he saw a long vista of bright shapes clamoring to be carved for the comfort and delight of the world.

Hastily he slipped down from his father’s arms to his own place on the hearthrug, and brought out his little box of clean chips from beneath the sofa. A great company of living beings was hidden there, waiting, waiting in the wood. Samuel looked up, and announced with jubilation, “Self—make—all!” He pondered a moment on his next subject. The carving of a cat had ended in disaster; let us then attempt the dog, the friend of man, not the heartless watcher by his fire. The child passed a thumb over the knife-edge, as the elders do, then chose a block, and addressed himself to it. “Dog.” No more.

The parents looked at each other, understanding profoundly that Samuel was no longer a child of three. Overnight, he had become a boy in the fourth year of his age. In mingled joy and anxiety they perceived also that for a certainty their wish had been granted; there was an artist in the family. And an artist, they supposed, would have his isolations, and tremulous expectancies; his aspirations, too, and perhaps his anguish in high enterprises, “None done.” But joy alone radiated from Samuel and his shining spirals. From the sorrow of a dream never to be finished he had passed to the incalculable rapture of a vision newly begun. “Dog,” he murmured, “dog.” He knew that the creature was lying low there in the chip, just for the express purpose of being summoned forth by him, Samuel. In his abounding bliss he had time to bestow on his parents three words to describe what he was about to make; and he spoke these words as if they were three priceless jewels, “_Beau—bello—beautiful!_”

THE END