Note 13 — LETTERS TO YOUNG PEOPLE

The lady to whom the first three of these letters are addressed “used to hear” (writes Mr. Lloyd Osbourne) “so frequently of the ‘boys’ in Vailima, that she wrote and asked Mr. Stevenson for news of them, as it would so much interest her little girls. In the tropics, for some reason or other that it is impossible to understand, servants and work-people are always called ‘boys,’ though the years of Methuselah may have whitened their heads, and great-grandchildren prattle about their knees. Mr. Stevenson was amused to think that his ‘boys,’ who ranged from eighteen years of age to threescore and ten, should be mistaken for little youngsters; but he was touched to hear of the sick children his friend tried so hard to entertain, and gladly wrote a few letters to them. He would have written more but for the fact that his friend left the home, being transferred elsewhere.”