Breckie, His Four Years - 1914-1918 #228311

In presenting this brief record Of Breckie's four years to his friends and mine and a few others whom I revere as friends Of childhood, I would like to call attention to the fact that much more Of his short life was spent outdoors than in — something unusual I think in the annals of civilized infancy. For at least seven or eight months out of each year he spent about twenty hours of the twenty-four in the open air, and this was a tre mendons factor in making his body sturdy and his nature sweet. I reared him as carefully as I could by those scientific laws of child development whose discovery in recent years has revolu tionized the care of little children in body and mind, and this partly explains his wholesomeness and the growing reasonable ness of his third and fourth years. But Breckie was a creature Of higher endowments than my own and I early recognized in our comradeship together that I led only in maturity, for his were the larger possibilities. He was not my little child only but my master as well, and the best friend I ever had.