" He kept his eyes upon them to
make sure they understood him. "The little, common places," he
continued with emphasis, "that no one thinks worth while. He hides in
the open--bang out in the open!"
"In the open!" cried the children. "The open air!"
"In the open!" gasped Uncle Felix. "The open sea!"
The Tramp almost winked at them. He looked like a lot of ordinary
people. He looked like everybody. He looked like the whole world
somehow. He smiled just like a multitude. He spoke, as it were, for
all the world--said the one simple thing that everybody everywhere was
trying to say in millions of muddled words and sentences. The wind and
trees and sunshine said it with him, for him, after him, before him.
He said the thing--so Uncle Felix felt, at any rate,--that was always
saying itself, that was everywhere heard, though rarely listened to;
but, according to the children, the thing they knew and believed
already. Only it was nice to hear it stated definitely--_they_ felt.
And the tide of enchantment rose higher and higher; in a tide of
flowing gold it poured about all three.
"That's it," the Tramp continued, as though he had not noticed the
rapture his very ordinary words had caused.
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