Boys who Became Famous Men [Illustration: "The citizen wheeled abruptly, grasped his arm."] Boys who Became Famous Men _Stories of the Childhood of Poets, Artists, and Musicians_ By Harriet Pearl Skinner Illustrated by Sears Gallagher Boston Little, Brown, and Company 1905 _Copyright, 1905_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. _All rights reserved_ Published September, 1905 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. TO FRANK, HOWARD, AND ROBERT ANDREWS CONTENTS PAGE BENI'S KEEPER: GIOTTO 1 THE VICTOR: BACH 9 "THE LITTLE BOY AT ABERDEEN": BYRON 44 "TOM PEAR-TREE'S PORTRAIT": GAINSBOROUGH 71 GEORG'S CHAMPION: HÄNDEL 92 SIX HUNDRED PLUS ONE: COLERIDGE 133 THE LION THAT HELPED: CANOVA 176 FRÉDÉRIC OF WARSAW: CHOPIN 207 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "The citizen wheeled abruptly, grasped his arm" _Frontispiece_ PAGE "He was roused by a hand upon his shoulder" 4 "Sebastian started up, bewildered" 37 "Lay in the grass reading aloud from his favorite story" 56 "A head suddenly appeared above the wall" 84 "The clavichord provided unceasing entertainment" 116 "In its place appeared a noble lion" 193 "Like the tired robbers, were fast asleep" 216 _BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS MEN_ BENI'S KEEPER [GIOTTO[1]] One summer morning, long ago, a small boy guarded his father's sheep on a hillside in the Apennines. Up and down the stony pasture he trod, driving back the lambs who strayed too far, and trying all the while to keep his wayward charges in a group where he could count them from time to time. His chief care was to prevent them from straggling into the lonely passes above, where wild animals might set upon and devour them; and to watch that they did not wander down the wooded slope and imprison themselves in the tangled thickets below. The boy might easily have been mistaken for a dryad, as he sprang from rock to rock, whistling shrilly here, coaxing, calling there, and waving his crook to direct the truants back to the flock. It would have seemed no great wonder if he had really stepped out from a mountain boulder to command these gentle troops, for like all woodland sprites, he was brown. His eyes were brown, his hair was brown, and the tunic reaching barely to his knee was made of cool brown linen. His sleeves were rolled to the shoulder, and his arms and legs, bared ever to the sun, were as brown as bronze itself. A crimson cover-kerchief wound carelessly about his head was the only bit of vivid color on the mountain side.