Colinton with his swarm of cousins; the games they had played and the
people they had known all trooped back with other memories of Edinburgh
days. As he recalled these children, they tripped from his pen until he
had a delightful collection of verses and determined to bring them
together in a book.

First he called it "The Penny Whistle," but soon changed the title to "A
Child's Garden of Verses" and dedicated it, with the following poem, to
the only one he said who would really understand the verses, the one who
had done so much to make his childhood days happy:


TO ALISON CUNNINGHAM

FROM HER BOY

"For the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake;
For your most comfortable hand
That led me through the uneven land;
For all the story-books you read;
For all the pains you comforted;
For all you pitied, all you bore
In sad and happy days of yore;--
My second Mother, my first wife,
The angel of my infant life--
From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!

"And grant it, Heaven, that all who read,