living picture of the boy who dwelt so much in a world of his own with
his quaint thoughts.

If his body was frail his spirit was strong and his power of
imagination so great that he cheered himself through many a weary day by
playing he was "captain of a tidy little ship," a soldier, a fierce
pirate, an Indian chief, or an explorer in foreign lands. Miles he
travelled in his little bed.

"I have just to shut my eyes,
To go sailing through the skies--
To go sailing far away
To the pleasant Land of Play"

he says.

[Illustration: No. 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Stevenson's birthplace]

In spite of his power for amusing himself, days like these would have
gone far harder had it not been for two devoted people, his mother and
his nurse, Alison Cunningham or "Cummie" as he called her. His mother
was devoted to him in every way and encouraged his love for reading and
story-making. She kept a diary of his progress from day to day, and
treasured every picture he drew or scrap he wrote. Cummie came to him as
a Torryburn lassie when he was eighteen months old and was like a second
mother to him. She not only cared for his bodily comforts but was his
friend and comrade as well. She sang for him, danced for him, spun fine
tales of pirates and smugglers, and read to him so dramatically that his
mind was fired then and there with a longing for travel and adventure
which he never lost. When they took their walks through the streets