In either case, the
fine flower of creation would most certainly have
been injured.
Then again, blessed though many of the nurses
of childhood undoubtedly are (and we all remember
them), they have no means of answering the
thousand and one questions of an eager, opening
mind. To be an adequate companion to childhood,
one must know so many things. Hilda is
fortunate in her mother, for if these poems reveal
one thing more than another it is that Mrs.
Conkling is dowered with an admirable tact. In
the dedication poem to her mother, the little girl
says:
"If I sing, you listen;
If I think, you know."
No finer tribute could be offered by one person to
another than the contented certainty of understanding
in those two lines.
Hilda tells her poems, and the method of it is
this: They come out in the course of conversation,
and Mrs. Conkling is so often engaged in
writing that there is nothing to be remarked if she
scribbles absently while talking to the little girls.
But this scribbling is really a complete draught of
the poem. Occasionally Mrs. Conkling writes
down the poem later from memory and reads it
afterwards to the child, who always remembers
if it is not exactly in its original form.
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