GAVIN AND HIS MOTHER

BY JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE

ON Gavin's fourth birthday his father was blown off his smack in a storm, and could not reach the rope his partner flung him. A month afterwards Margaret sold her share in the smack, which was all that was left her, and the furniture of the house was rouped. She left the little village of Harvie on the east coast of Scotland and took Gavin to Glasgow, where her only brother needed a housekeeper; and mother and son remained there seventeen years.

According to Margaret,

Gavin's genius showed itself while he was still a child. He was born with a brow whose nobility impressed her from the first. It was a minister's brow, and though Margaret herself was no scholar, being as slow to read as she was quick at turning bannocks on the griddle, she decided, when his age was still counted by months, that the ministry had need of him. In those days the first question asked of a child was not, "Tell me your name," but "What are you to be?" and one child in every family replied, "A minister." He was set apart for the Church

as doggedly as the shilling a week for the rent, and the rule held good though the family consisted of only one boy.

From his earliest days Gavin thought he had been fashioned for the ministry as certainly as a spade for digging, and Margaret rejoiced and marveled thereat. An enthusiastic mother may bend her son's mind as she chooses if she begins at once; nay, she may do stranger things. I know a mother in Thrums who loves "features," and had a child born with no chin to speak of. The neighbors expected this to bring her to the dust, but it only showed what a mother can do. In a few months that child had a chin with the best of them.

Margaret's brother died, but she remained in his single room, and, ever with a picture of her son in a pulpit to repay her, contrived to keep Gavin at school. Everything a woman's fingers can do Margaret's did better than most, and among the wealthy people who employed her, her gentle manner was spoken of. For though Margaret had no schooling, she was a lady at heart, moving and almost speaking as one even in Harvie, where they did not perhaps like her the better for it.

She expounded the Scriptures to Gavin till he was eight, when he began to expound them to her. By this time he was studying the practical work of the pulpit enthusiastically. From a front pew in the gallery Gavin watched the minister's every movement. He was encouraged by his frightened yet admiring mother to saw the air from their pew as the minister sawed it in the pulpit, and two benedictions were pronounced twice a

Sabbath in that church, in the same words, the same manner, and simultaneously.

There was a black year when the things of this world, especially its pastimes, took such a grip of Gavin that he said to Margaret he would rather be good at the high jump than the author of The Pilgrim's Progress. That year passed, and Gavin came to his right mind.

When he was twelve, he went to the university, and also got a place in a shop as errand boy. He used to run the streets between his work and his classes. Potatoes and salt fish, which could then be got at two pence the pound if bought by the half-hundred weight, were his food. There was not always a good meal for two; yet when Gavin reached home at night, there was generally something ready for him, and Margaret had supped "hours ago." Gavin's hunger urged him to fall to, but his love for his mother made him watchful.

"What did you have yourself, Mother?" he would demand suspiciously.

"Oh, I had a fine supper, I assure you."

"What had you?"

"I had potatoes, for one thing.'

"And dripping?"

"You may be sure."

"Mother, you're cheating me. The dripping hasn't been touched since yesterday.'

"I dinna - don't care for dripping- -no much.". Then Gavin would stride the room fiercely, a queer little figure.

"Do you think I'll stand this, Mother? Will I let

myself be pampered with dripping and every delicacy while you starve?"

"Gavin, I really dinna care for dripping."

"Then I'll give up my classes, and we can have butter." "I assure you I'm no hungry. It's different wi' a growing laddie."

"I'm not a growing laddie," Gavin would say, bitterly; "but, Mother, I warn you that not another bite passes my throat till I see you eating too."

So Margaret had to take her seat at the table, and when she said, "I can eat no more," Gavin retorted sternly, "Nor will I, for fine I see through you."

Just as Gavin in his childhood reflected his mother, she now reflected him. The people for whom she sewed thought it was contact with them that had rubbed the broad Scotch from her tongue, but she was only keeping pace with Gavin. When she was excited, the Harvie words came back to her.

To Margaret it was happiness to sit through the long evenings sewing, and look over her work at Gavin as he read or wrote or recited to himself the learning of the schools. But she coughed every time the weather changed, and then Gavin would start.

"You must go to your bed, Mother," he would say, tearing himself from his books; or he would sit beside her and talk of the dream that was common to both — a dream of a manse where Margaret was mistress and Gavin was called the minister. Every night Gavin was at his mother's bedside to wind her shawl round her feet, and while he did it Margaret smiled.

"Mother, this is the chaff pillow you've taken out of my bed, and given me your feather one."

"Gavin, you needna change them. I winna have the feather pillow."

"Do you dare to think I'll let you sleep on chaff? Put up your head. Now, is that soft?"

"It's fine. I dinna deny but what I sleep better on feathers. Do you mind, Gavin, you bought this pillow for me the moment you got your bursary money?"

When he saw his mother sleeping happily, Gavin went back to his work. To save the expense of a lamp, he would put his book almost under the dying fire, and taking the place of the fender, read till he was shivering with cold. "Gavin, it is near morning, and you not in your bed yet! What are you thinking about so hard?"

"Oh, Mother, I was wondering if the time would ever come when I would be a minister, and you would have an egg for your breakfast every morning."

So the years passed, and soon Gavin would be a minister. He had now sermons to prepare, and every one of them was first preached to Margaret. How solemn was his voice, how his eyes flashed, how stern were his admonitions!

"Gavin, such a sermon I never heard. The spirit of God is on you. I'm ashamed you should have me for a mother."

"God grant, Mother," Gavin said, "that you may never be ashamed to have me for a son."

The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride