Max Stanley Johnson I Max said to me one late afternoon as we lay on an island in Bear River, with the sun beating down wonderfully and the silence laden with loneliness, "People who don't read books miss a lot of life." We languished silently for a while, reveling in the sights and sounds about us the lazy surface of the water, the deathlessly calm fields of grain across the valley, the cloudless sky, the sun that we thought was standing still, and the steady hum of bees. Then we talked of the stories and essays and poetry he loves Shakespeare, "Crossing the Bar", Kipling, Oscar Wilde's fairy tales, and above all, "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." Then once we were in his rooms looking up to the monutains to which winter was just coming. Indian summer was hardly more than a dimly colored memory; most of the color was gone, and there were patches of snow near the top. And Max said, "How I love to tramp through those hills! To feel the wind and hear the crackling leaves and smell the autumn itself ..." Another time we were paddling a crude rowboat up the river. We were naked; our clothing had been discarded and forgotten. We sprang from boat to water, splashed about, and scrambled back. The boat frequently beached itself. On such occasions we would clamber out, shove it off into the current, and gleefully dive after it. Sometimes we would stop and cover ourselves with sand and lie and bake. Upon infre-quent occasions we would take discreet puffs on a pipe we shared in common. It added materially to our peace and contentment, though pipes are supposed to be very bad for boys of fourteen and sixteen. (Max was the younger.) Everything was glorious. The struggle for existence seemed very far away and unimportant. The water was the bluest we had ever seen; the pastures rising up from the river banks were the greenest. Nature was at her best. We seemed enclosed in an impregnable world of silence. "If there is a God," Max said on that day, "I think This is He." Then when we beached our boat and were lying on the sand, nearly asleep, Max reached over and laid his hand on my back and said, "Let's get away from here." Then we planned our trip. Max has already been all over the country, and he knows all about it. We will go to Chicago, we decided; hitch-hike, ride the freights we don't care how. Then we will get a boat Max knows of, and leave the whole world behind in a vagabond voyage down the Mississippi. It is no idle dream. One of these days oh, yes, one of these days when it is a little nearer spring, when the smell of it is in the air, when we talk about the trip until we just can't contain ourselves any longer then we'll go. And gliding down the bosom of the great river, watching the banks slip by on both sides, seeing and feeling sorry for the land people chained to mediocre little worlds of self-complacency, Max will be as near heaven as he ever wants to be. I don't know but that I shall be, too. II Max is not irreverent; he is, in fact, descended from religious leaders of the first rank; he would not be allowed to feel irreverent however much he might want to. But Max does not look for God in the usual places. He finds Him in His more primeval and untarnished habitats. Max will see a gaunt tree with snow on and will discover some touch of the Master. We have talked about religion more than any other subject. We don't talk of creeds and professions, but rather of the plan behind it all, of the reason and the result, of the cause and the effect. Max doesn't know about God. He thinks that if there is a God, He can't be found in any creed set ud bv man. Max believes that God lingers in the hills and woods and waters He created, and that the cowboy on the plains is closer to God than the bishop in the office. I think that Max is right. Max doesn't believe in Hell, either; nor do I. That makes it quite convenient f or both of us at times. III Max is far more matured, mentally, morally, and physically, than his slight years would seem to indicate. He does his thinking and talking and acting as a grownup. He has very dark brown hair and eyes and a very fair complexion. His features are clear-cut and strong, yet somehow soft and gentle. His eyes are always wistful. His moral code is his own, and his conscience scorns convention. His ideas of what is right and what is wrong would have given qualms to his forefathers; but Max has (Continued on Page 21) Max believes that God lingers in the hills and woods and waters He created, and that' the cowboy on the plains is closer to God than the bishop in the office. Page Seven