watch. Wondering sometimes why the tide came in. Did you
ever?

Did you see the way that last wave broke? Like a young spirit

leaping.

For almost a year the boy drew in the sand, making his pictures from —

his first scratchings larger and larger. Every night the tide would ©

wash away his drawings. Yet he grew quicker with his stick. One
day, just at the ebb, he had all the small beach patterned with weird
forms. Waves, sea-gulls, clouds all swirling around the bay, framed
with rocks and foam. A fresh wind blew.

The boy laughed and turned. A tall man stood smiling.

“T have watched you for days. You should take brushes,” said the
stranger. “Brushes and canvas, then, perhaps, no, it would not be
so big a theme. They are waves. I know they are waves, though
they seem mere fantasies. Such drawing! I could not do thus.

‘Except ye become as a little child.’ That boy I met in the chapel |

said. I draw better when I do not think. Perhaps it is so. My
boy, you have done a wonderful work.”

He stood and surveyed the beach so strangely wrought from smooth
sand to a moving composition. He looked from the rocks that
framed it at the one end, to the sea at the other. He groaned. His
mouth that had been knit in a firm smile slackened. He was an old
man.

“It is terrible,” he said. ‘“The wall crumbles, the statue is broken,
the paint fades and cracks. Look, my boy, the tide is returning.
Quick, let us build a dam.’’ Even as he spoke he realized the folly
of any scheme to stop that tide.

“It always returns,’’ said the boy. ‘“Why is that, why does it move
so?’’ ‘The old man smiled quietly and explained the mystery of the
seas. His eyes were pleased with the drawing. He frowned at the
approaching sea.

Watching, he spoke of birds. Again of cloud formations, the stra-
tus, the cirrus, the cumulus. Again, of how one man might do the
work of many. Still watching, he wandered from war engines to
pictures of angels, from canals to how the sea-gulls fly.

The boy forgot his drawing. He listened. Father only spoke of
money, his mother of religion. Here was a new world.

But the tide was coming in. Just a short while and all the sand
would be covered. The old man, seeing this wonder passing before
his eyes, was quick to ask the boy his story. He smiled as it was
told.

“Such freedom comes only from love,’’ he said. ‘““You love the sea,
and drawing? Oh, yes, it is mysterious. You are afraid? Only
in the dark? Why? Because you cannot see. One must not fear

[22]

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TS pat = EEE