The Americanization of Edward Bok | Page 5

the Feminine Nature XXX. Cleaning Up the
Patent-Medicine and Other Evils XXXI. Adventures in Civics XXXII.
A Bewildered Bok XXXIII. How Millions of People Are Reached
XXXIV. A War Magazine and War Activities XXXV. At the
Battle-Fronts in the Great War XXXVI. The End of Thirty Years'
Editorship XXXVII. The Third Period XXXVIII. Where America Fell
Short with Me XXXIX. What I Owe to America Edward William Bok:
Biographical Data The Expression of a Personal Pleasure

An Introduction of Two Persons
IN WHOSE LIVES ARE FOUND THE SOURCE AND
MAINSPRING OF SOME OF THE EFFORTS OF THE AUTHOR OF
THIS BOOK IN HIS LATER YEARS
Along an island in the North Sea, five miles from the Dutch Coast,
stretches a dangerous ledge of rocks that has proved the graveyard of
many a vessel sailing that turbulent sea. On this island once lived a
group of men who, as each vessel was wrecked, looted the vessel and
murdered those of the crew who reached shore. The government of the
Netherlands decided to exterminate the island pirates, and for the job
King William selected a young lawyer at The Hague.
"I want you to clean up that island," was the royal order. It was a
formidable job for a young man of twenty-odd years. By royal
proclamation he was made mayor of the island, and within a year, a
court of law being established, the young attorney was appointed judge;
and in that dual capacity he "cleaned up" the island.
The young man now decided to settle on the island, and began to look
around for a home. It was a grim place, barren of tree or living green of
any kind; it was as if a man had been exiled to Siberia. Still, argued the
young mayor, an ugly place is ugly only because it is not beautiful.
And beautiful he determined this island should be.
One day the young mayor-judge called together his council. "We must
have trees," he said; "we can make this island a spot of beauty if we
will!" But the practical seafaring men demurred; the little money they

had was needed for matters far more urgent than trees.
"Very well," was the mayor's decision--and little they guessed what the
words were destined to mean--"I will do it myself." And that year he
planted one hundred trees, the first the island had ever seen.
"Too cold," said the islanders; "the severe north winds and storms will
kill them all."
"Then I will plant more," said the unperturbed mayor. And for the fifty
years that he lived on the island he did so. He planted trees each year;
and, moreover, he had deeded to the island government land which he
turned into public squares and parks, and where each spring he set out
shrubs and plants.
Moistened by the salt mist the trees did not wither, but grew
prodigiously. In all that expanse of turbulent sea--and only those who
have seen the North Sea in a storm know how turbulent it can be--there
was not a foot of ground on which the birds, storm-driven across the
water-waste, could rest in their flight. Hundreds of dead birds often
covered the surface of the sea. Then one day the trees had grown tall
enough to look over the sea, and, spent and driven, the first birds came
and rested in their leafy shelter. And others came and found protection,
and gave their gratitude vent in song. Within a few years so many birds
had discovered the trees in this new island home that they attracted the
attention not only of the native islanders but also of the people on the
shore five miles distant, and the island became famous as the home of
the rarest and most beautiful birds. So grateful were the birds for their
resting-place that they chose one end of the island as a special spot for
the laying of their eggs and the raising of their young, and they fairly
peopled it. It was not long before ornithologists from various parts of
the world came to "Eggland," as the farthermost point of the island
came to be known, to see the marvellous sight, not of thousands but of
hundreds of thousands of bird-eggs.
A pair of storm-driven nightingales had now found the island and
mated there; their wonderful notes thrilled even the souls of the natives;
and as dusk fell upon the seabound strip of land the women and
children would come to "the square" and listen to the evening notes of
the birds of golden song. The two nightingales soon grew into a colony,
and within a few years so rich was the island in its nightingales that
over to the Dutch coast and throughout the land and into other countries

spread the fame of "The