y with the rest of the population (although in some cases they
have already more rights than the aboriginal population, or, better,
they have greater possibilities to utilise the rights which they
enjoy)."

("A Writer's Journal," March, 1877, III, p. 4.)

* * * * *

THE LITTLE BOY

THE LITTLE BOY

(A STORY)

BY MAXIM GORKY

It is hard to tell this little story,--it is so simple. When I was a
youth, I used to gather the children of our street on Sunday mornings
during the spring and summer seasons and take them with me to the
fields and woods. I took great pleasure in the friendship of these
little people, who were as gay as birds.

The children were only too glad to leave the dusty, narrow streets of
the city. Their mothers provided them with slices of bread, while I
bought them dainties and filled a big bottle with cider, and like a
shepherd, walked behind my carefree little lambs, while we passed
through the town and the fields on our way to the green forest,
beautiful and caressing in its array of Spring.

We always started on our journey early in the morning when the church
bells were ushering in the early mass, and we were accompanied by the
chimes and the clouds of dust raised by the children's nimble feet.

In the heat of noon, exhausted with playing, my companions would
gather at the edge of the forest, and after that, having eaten their
food, the smaller children would lie down and sleep in the shade of
hazel and snow-ball trees, while the ten-year-old boys would flock
around me and ask me to tell them stories. I would satisfy their
desire, chattering as eagerly as the children themselves, and often,
in spite of the self-assurance of youth and the ridiculous pride which
it takes in the miserable crumbs of worldly wisdom it possesses, I
would feel like a twenty-year-old child in a conclave of sages.

Overhead is the blue veil of the spring sky, and before us lies the
deep forest, brooding in wise silence. Now and then the wind whispers
gently and stirs the fragrant shadows of the forest, and again does
the soothing silence caress us with a motherly caress. White clouds
are sailing slowly across the azure heavens. Viewed from the earth,
heated by the sun, the sky appears cold, and it is strange to see the
clouds melt away in the blue. And all around me--little people, dear
little people, destined to partake of all the sorrows and all the joys
of life.