THE BOAT OF DREAMS.

    Once there were two happy children. They were very happy,
for they had no care.

    All day they played on the sands of a bright river that came out
of the blue sky to the east and flowed into the sky of the west, where
evening turned it to a river of gold.

    And often as they played the children talked of a wonderful boat
that would some day come to take them down this bright river. It
would not be like other boats, but, as the river was a dream river, so the
boat would be a boat of dreams, with a sail of light, and they would
only have to sit in the magic boat and be borne along and along by
the fair blue tide that came out of the sweet meadows of morning.

    Always they talked of the wonderful River Boat, and always they
waited for it as they played, free from care, on the bright sands.

    And lo, one day, a day of dreams, when a haze lay upon the water
and all the fields were still, they suddenly saw their River Boat coming.
And they watched without speaking, fearing it might pass them by.

    Nearer and nearer it came, and it did not pass, but came quite to
the shore, all so gently and silently, as they had dreamed.

    And the two happy children stepped on board the River Boat and
sat side by side, saying no word, but wonderfully happy (being free from
care) because their boat of dreams had come for them at last.

    And the sail of the magic River Boat was filled with light, and they
were borne away. Side by side, in happy silence, they were borne down
the bright river. In their boat of dreams the happy children of fancy
sailed on and still on, to a fair land that lies through the gates of evening,
where all our dreams become realities, and all our realities dreams.

                                                                        Albert Bigelow Paine.