The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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 "I have just to shut my eyes,
  To go sailing through the skies--
  To go sailing far away
  To the pleasant Land of Play"

he says.

[Illustration: No. 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Stevenson's birthplace]

In spite of his power for amusing himself, days like these would have
gone far harder had it not been for two devoted people, his mother and
his nurse, Alison Cunningham or "Cummie" as he called her. His mother
was devoted to him in every way and encouraged his love for reading and
story-making. She kept a diary of his progress from day to day, and
treasured every picture he drew or scrap he wrote. Cummie came to him as
a Torryburn lassie when he was eighteen months old and was like a second
mother to him. She not only cared for his bodily comforts but was his