What Nathalia has written is the kind of thing that she can write, whatever its merits or demerits. She has measured it against no other verse, youthful or adult. The inspiration for most of it comes from books she has read, which are mainly romantic in character. As for the rest, it happens that she is an extraordinarily articulate little girl, and if in some cases the conceits and fancies which she crystallizes are no rarer than those that, in all probability, throng the mysterious mind of every imaginative child, the explanation is simply that she is able to utter and clarify them, and these other children are, for the most part, normally unable to do that. That also they have, in Nathalia’s case, taken the form of mature work, as evidenced, in one way, by the fact that editors published her contributions for several months before learning that she was so much below the accepted age for serious consideration, is, I believe, another mark of her high singularity. Others, unfortunately, will be less easily satisfied. A cynicism concerning the future careers of precocious children is one of the rigid fundamentals of nearly every mind. It has, no doubt, a valid basis. But, for that reason, Nathalia’s future, probably very dark in popular prospect, threatens to shade her present. That is why I offered at the outset, as a point of information, the comment on Nathalia’s general attitude toward life. Nathalia, I am sure, sees no reason why anybody else should read these poems with an eye any further ahead in time than this afternoon’s sunset. She is content to leave the verdict, so far as posterity is concerned, to her own grandchildren. NUNNALLY JOHNSON _Brooklyn, N. Y., May, 1924._ THE JANITOR’S BOY AND OTHER POEMS THE JANITOR’S BOY Oh I’m in love with the janitor’s boy, And the janitor’s boy loves me; He’s going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography. A desert isle with spicy trees Somewhere near Sheepshead Bay; A right nice place, just fit for two Where we can live alway. Oh I’m in love with the janitor’s boy, He’s busy as he can be; And down in the cellar he’s making a raft Out of an old settee. He’ll carry me off, I know that he will, For his hair is exceedingly red; And the only thing that occurs to me Is to dutifully shiver in bed. The day that we sail, I shall leave this brief note, For my parents I hate to annoy: “I have flown away to an isle in the bay With the janitor’s red-haired boy.” OH, ROGER JONES Oh, Roger Jones! Oh, Roger Jones! Oh, Prince! O, Knight! Ah me! We used to play at keeping house, Beneath an old oak tree. Your hair was red, your eyes were brown, You had a freckled nose; You were the father of my dolls, My husband--I suppose. Oh, Roger! You were only nine, And I was half-past eight; It really was romantic, or As good, at any rate.