THE LEAVE-TAKING
“_All ‘Tommy Smith’s Animals’ take leave with joy_,
_For they know Tommy Smith is a different boy_.”
WHEN Tommy Smith had gone to sleep, the owl flew away, and he flew to
the same place where he had met the other animals before, and found
them all there again waiting for him (of course, it had been arranged).
Then all the animals began to tell each other about the conversations
they had had with Tommy Smith, and what a very much better boy he had
become. They were all so glad; and, of course, they all thanked the
owl, because it had been his idea.
Then the owl thanked all the animals for thanking _him_, and he said
that it _was_ his idea, but that it might just as well have been the
idea of any other animal there, and he wished that it _had_ been,
because, _then_, he could have called it clever, but _now_, of course,
he couldn’t, for _that_ would be praising himself,—which would
_never_ do. You see, he wanted to be modest. One ought always to be
modest when one makes a speech. And now (the owl said) he was quite
sure that Tommy Smith would never be unkind to animals any more as long
as he lived, because, just before he flew away, he had asked him to
promise that he wouldn’t. But Tommy Smith had just gone off to sleep
then, and so he had had to promise it in his sleep. “And, you know,”
said the owl, “that when a promise is made in _that_ way, it is always
kept.” Then all the animals clapped their—well, whatever they could
clap, and said “Hurrah!” and the meeting broke up.
And the owl was right. As Tommy Smith grew older, and became a big boy,
he found that animals did not talk to him any more in the way they
used to do. It seemed as if they only cared to talk to _little_ boys
or girls. But there was one way of having conversations with them,
which he got to like better and better, and that was to go out into the
woods and fields and watch what they were doing. He soon found that
that was quite as interesting as really talking to them. In fact, it
_was_ talking to them in another kind of way, for they kept telling him
all about themselves, only without speaking. And the more Tommy Smith
learnt about them, the more he liked them, until the animals became his
very best friends. Of course, one is never unkind to one’s very best
friends, and, besides, Tommy Smith had given the owl a promise—in his
sleep.
_Printed by_
MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED
_Edinburgh_