[Illustration: THACKERAY AND THE BOY] A BOY I KNEW AND FOUR DOGS By Laurence Hutton Profusely Illustrated NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1898 +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | By LAURENCE HUTTON. | | | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF ROME. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, | | Ornamental, $1 00. | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF FLORENCE. Illustrated. Post 8vo, | | Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF VENICE. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, | | Ornamental, $1 00. | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF JERUSALEM. Illustrated. Post 8vo, | | Cloth, Ornamental, 75 cents. | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF LONDON. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, | | Ornamental, $1 75. | | | | LITERARY LANDMARKS OF EDINBURGH. Illustrated. Post 8vo, | | Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. | | | | PORTRAITS IN PLASTER. Illustrated. Printed on Large Paper | | with Wide Margins. 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges | | and Gilt Top, $6 00. | | | | CURIOSITIES OF THE AMERICAN STAGE. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, | | Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50. | | | | FROM THE BOOKS OF LAURENCE HUTTON. With Portrait. 16mo, | | Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00. (In "Harper's American | | Essayists. ") | | | | OTHER TIMES AND OTHER SEASONS. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, | | Ornamental, $1 00. (In "Harper's American Essayists. ") | | | | EDWIN BOOTH. Illustrated. 32mo, Cloth, 50 cents. | | | | | | NEW YORK AND LONDON: | | HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ Copyright, 1898, by Harper & Brothers. _All rights reserved. _ TO MARK TWAIN THE CREATOR OF TOM SAWYER ONE OF THE BEST BOYS I EVER KNEW _May the light of some morning skies In days when the sun knew how to rise, Stay with my spirit until I go To be the boy that I used to know. _ H. C. Bunner, in "Rowen. " ILLUSTRATIONS THACKERAY AND THE BOY _Frontispiece_ THE BOY'S MOTHER Facing p. 4 ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL AND PARK " 6 THE BOY'S UNCLE JOHN " 8 THE BOY IN KILTS " 10 THE BOY PROMOTED TO TROUSERS " 12 "CRIED, BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN KISSED" " 14 "GOOD-MORNING, BOYS" " 16 PLAYING "SCHOOL" " 18 THE BOY'S SCOTCH GRANDFATHER " 20 THE HOUSE OF THE BOY'S GRANDFATHER--CORNER OF HUDSON AND NORTH MOORE STREETS " 22 "ALWAYS IN THE WAY" " 24 READY FOR A NEW-YEAR'S CALL " 26 A NEW-YEAR'S CALL " 28 TOM RILEY'S LIBERTY-POLE " 30 THE BOY ALWAYS CLIMBED OVER " 32 THE CHIEF ENGINEER " 34 "MRS. ROBERTSON DESCENDED IN FORCE UPON THE DEVOTED BAND" " 36 THE BOY AS VIRGINIUS " 38 JOHNNY ROBERTSON " 40 JANE PURDY " 42 JOE STUART " 44 BOB HENDRICKS " 46 MUSIC LESSONS " 48 THE BOY'S FATHER " 56 WHISKIE " 62 PUNCH " 64 MOP AND HIS MASTER " 68 ROY AND HIS MASTER " 74 ROY " 76 "HE TRIES VERY HARD TO LOOK PLEASANT" " 80 ROY " 82 THE WAITING THREE " 84 MOP 87 INTRODUCTORY NOTE The papers upon which this volume is founded--published here by thecourtesy of The Century Company--appeared originally in the columns of_St. Nicholas_. They have been reconstructed and rearranged, and not alittle new matter has been added. The portraits are all from life. That of The Boy's Scottish grandfather, facing page 20, is from a photograph by Sir David Brewster, taken in St. Andrews in 1846 or 1847. The subject sat in his own garden, blinking atthe sun for many minutes, in front of the camera, when tradition saysthat his patience became exhausted and the artist permitted him to move. The Boy distinctly remembers the great interest the picture excited whenit first reached this country. Behind the tree in the extreme left of the view of The Boy'sScottish-American grandfather's house in New York, facing page 22, maybe seen a portion of the home of Mr. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in 1843 or1844, some years earlier than the period of "The Story of a Bad Boy. "Warm and constant friends--as men--for upwards of a quarter of acentury, it is rather a curious coincidence that the boys--asboys--should have been near neighbors, although they did not know eachother then, nor do they remember the fact. The histories of "A Boy I Knew" and the "Four Dogs" are absolutely true, from beginning to end; nothing has been invented; no incident has beenpalliated or elaborated. The author hopes that the volume may interestthe boys and girls he does not know as much as it has interested him. Hehas read it more than once; he has laughed over it, and he has criedover it; it has appealed to him in a peculiar way. But then, he knew TheDogs, and he knew The Boy! L. H. A BOY I KNEW A BOY I KNEW He was not a very good boy, or a very bad boy, or a very bright boy, oran unusual boy in any way. He was just a boy; and very often he forgetsthat he is not a boy now. Whatever there may be about The Boy that iscommendable he owes to his father and to his mother; and he feels thathe should not be held responsible for that. His mother was the most generous and the most unselfish of human beings. She was always thinking of somebody else--always doing for others. Toher it was blessčd to give, and it was not very pleasant to receive. When she bought anything, The Boy's stereotyped query was, "Who is tohave it?" When anything was bought for her, her own invariable remarkwas, "What on earth shall I do with it?" When The Boy came to her, onesummer morning, she looked upon him as a gift from Heaven; and when shewas told that it _was_ a boy, and not a bad-looking or a bad-conditionedboy, her first words were, "What on earth shall I do with it?" She found plenty "to do with it" before she got through with it, morethan forty years afterwards; and The Boy has every reason to believethat she never regretted the gift. Indeed, she once told him, late inher life, that he had never made her cry! What better benediction can aboy have than that? The Boy's father was a scholar, and a ripe and good one. Self-made andself-taught, he began the serious struggle of life when he was merely aboy himself; and reading, and writing, and spelling, and languages, andmathematics came to him by nature. He acquired by slow degrees a finelibrary, and out of it a vast amount of information. He never bought abook that he did not read, and he never read a book unless he consideredit worth buying and worth keeping. Languages and mathematics were hisparticular delight. When he was tired he rested himself by the solvingof a geometrical problem. He studied his Bible in Latin, in Greek, inHebrew, and he had no small smattering of Sanskrit. His chiefrecreation, on a Sunday afternoon or on a long summer evening, was awalk with The Boy among the Hudson River docks, when the business of theday, or the week, was over and the ship was left in charge of some oldquartermaster or third mate. To these sailors the father would talk ineach sailor's own tongue, whether it were Dutch or Danish, Spanish orSwedish, Russian or Prussian, or a _patois_ of something else, always tothe great wonderment of The Boy, who to this day, after many years offoreign travel, knows little more of French than "_Combien?_" and littlemore of Italian than "_Troppo caro_. " Why none of these qualities ofmind came to The Boy by direct descent he does not know. He only knowsthat he did inherit from his parent, in an intellectual way, a sense ofhumor, a love for books--as books--and a certain respect for the men bywhom books are written. [Illustration: THE BOY'S MOTHER] It seemed to The Boy that his father knew everything. Any question uponany subject was sure to bring a prompt, intelligent, and intelligibleanswer; and, usually, an answer followed by a question, on the father'spart, which made The Boy think the matter out for himself. The Boy was always a little bit afraid of his father, while he loved andrespected him. He believed everything his father told him, because hisfather never fooled him but once, and that was about Santa Claus! When his father said, "Do this, " it was done. When his father told himto go or to come, he went or he came. And yet he never felt the weightof his father's hand, except in the way of kindness; and, as he looksback upon his boyhood and his manhood, he cannot recall an angry or ahasty word or a rebuke that was not merited and kindly bestowed. Hisfather, like the true Scotchman he was, never praised him; but he neverblamed him--except for cause. The Boy has no recollection of his first tooth, but he remembers hisfirst toothache as distinctly as he remembers his latest; and he couldnot quite understand _then_ why, when The Boy cried over that ragingmolar, the father walked the floor and seemed to suffer from it evenmore than did The Boy; or why, when The Boy had a sore throat, thefather always had symptoms of bronchitis or quinsy. The father, alas! did not live long enough to find out whether The Boywas to amount to much or not; and while The Boy is proud of the factthat he is his father's son, he would be prouder still if he could thinkthat he had done something to make his father proud of _him_. From his father The Boy received many things besides birth andeducation; many things better than pocket-money or a fixed sum perannum; but, best of all, the father taught The Boy never to cut astring. The Boy has pulled various cords during his uneventful life, buthe has untied them all. Some of the knots have been difficult andperplexing, and the contents of the bundles, generally, have been oflittle import when they have been revealed; but he saved the stringsunbroken, and invariably he has found those strings of great help to himin the proper fastening of the next package he has had occasion tosend away. [Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL AND PARK] The father had that strong sense of humor which Dr. Johnson--who had nosense of humor whatever--denied to all Scotchmen. No surgical operationwas necessary to put one of Sydney Smith's jokes into the father's head, or to keep it there. His own jokes were as original as they wereharmless, and they were as delightful as was his quick appreciation ofthe jokes of other persons. A long siege with a certain bicuspid had left The Boy, one early springday, with a broken spirit and a swollen face. The father was going, thatmorning, to attend the funeral of his old friend, Dr. McPherson, and, before he left the house, he asked The Boy what should be brought backto him as a solace. Without hesitation, a brick of maple sugar wasdemanded--a very strange request, certainly, from a person in thatpeculiar condition of invalidism, and one which appealed strongly to thefather's own sense of the ridiculous. When the father returned, at dinner-time, he carried the brick, enveloped in many series of papers, beginning with the coarsest kind andending with the finest kind; and each of the wrappers was fastened withits own particular bit of cord or ribbon, all of them tied in thehardest of hard knots. The process of disentanglement was long andlaborious, but it was persistently performed; and when the brick wasrevealed, lo! it was just a brick--not of maple sugar, but a plain, ordinary, red-clay, building brick which he had taken from some pile ofsimilar bricks on his way up town. The disappointment was not verybitter, for The Boy knew that something else was coming; and he realizedthat it was the First of April and that he had been April-fooled! Thesomething else, he remembers, was that most amusing of all amusingbooks, _Phoenixiana_, then just published, and over it he forgot histoothache, but not his maple sugar. All this happened when he was abouttwelve years of age, and he has ever since associated "Squibob" with thesweet sap of the maple, never with raging teeth. It was necessary, however, to get even with the father, not an easymatter, as The Boy well knew; and he consulted his uncle John, whoadvised patient waiting. The father, he said, was absolutely devoted to_The Commercial Advertiser_, which he read every day from frontispieceto end, market reports, book notices, obituary notices, advertisements, and all; and if The Boy could hold himself in for a whole year his uncleJohn thought it would be worth it. _The Commercial Advertiser_ of thatdate was put safely away for a twelvemonth, and on the First of Aprilnext it was produced, carefully folded and properly dampened, and wasplaced by the side of the father's plate; the mother and the sonmaking no remark, but eagerly awaiting the result. The journal wasvigorously scanned; no item of news or of business import was misseduntil the reader came to the funeral announcements on the third page. Then he looked at the top of the paper, through his spectacles, and thenhe looked, over his spectacles, at The Boy; and he made but oneobservation. The subject was never referred to afterwards between them. But he looked at the date of the paper, and he looked at The Boy; and hesaid: "My son, I see that old Dr. McPherson is dead again!" [Illustration: THE BOY'S UNCLE JOHN] The Boy was red-headed and long-nosed, even from the beginning--a shy, introspective, self-conscious little boy, made peculiarly familiar withhis personal defects by constant remarks that his hair _was_ red andthat his nose _was_ long. At school, for years, he was known familiarlyas "Rufus, " "Red-Head, " "Carrot-Top, " or "Nosey, " and at home it wasalmost as bad. His mother, married at nineteen, was the eldest of a family of ninechildren, and many of The Boy's aunts and uncles were but a few yearshis senior, and were his daily, familiar companions. He was the onlymember of his own generation for a long time. There was a constant fear, upon the part of the elders, that he was likely to be spoiled, andconsequently the rod of verbal castigation was rarely spared. He wasnever praised, nor petted, nor coddled; and he was taught to look uponhimself as a youth hairily and nasally deformed and mentally of butlittle wit. He was always falling down, or dropping things. He wasalways getting into the way, and he could not learn to spell correctlyor to cipher at all. He was never in his mother's way, however, and hewas never made to feel so. But nobody except The Boy knows of the agonywhich the rest of the family, unconsciously, and with no thought ofhurting his feelings, caused him by the fun they poked at his nose, athis fiery locks, and at his unhandiness. He fancied that passers-bypitied him as he walked or played in the streets, and he sincerelypitied himself as a youth destined to grow up into an awkward, tactless, stupid man, at whom the world would laugh so long as his life lasted. An unusual and unfortunate accident to his nose when he was eight or tenyears old served to accentuate his unhappiness. The young people weremaking molasses candy one night in the kitchen of his maternalgrandfather's house--the aunts and the uncles, some of the neighbors'children, and The Boy--and the half of a lemon, used for flavoringpurposes, was dropped as it was squeezed by careless hands--very likelyThe Boy's own--into the boiling syrup. It was fished out and put, stillfull of the syrup, upon a convenient saucer, where it remained, anexceedingly fragrant object. After the odor had been inhaled by oneor two of the party, The Boy was tempted to "take a smell of it"; whenan uncle, boylike, ducked the luckless nose into the still simmeringlemonful. The result was terrible. Red-hot sealing-wax could not havedone more damage to the tender, sensitive feature. [Illustration: THE BOY IN KILTS] The Boy carried his nose in a sling for many weeks, and the bandage, naturally, twisted the nose to one side. It did not recover its naturaltint for a long time, and the poor little heart was nearly broken at thethought of the fresh disfigurement. The Boy felt that he had not only anunusually long nose, but a nose that was crooked and would always be asred as his hair. He does not remember what was done to his uncle. But the uncle was forhalf a century The Boy's best and most faithful of friends. And The Boyforgave him long, long ago. The Boy's first act of self-reliance and of conscious self-dependencewas a very happy moment in his young life; and it consisted in his beingable to step over the nursery fender, all alone, and to toast his ownshins thereby, without falling into the fire. His first realization of"getting big" came to him about the same time, and with a mingled shockof pain and pleasure, when he discovered that he could not walk underthe high kitchen-table without bumping his head. He tried it very oftenbefore he learned to go around that article of furniture, on his wayfrom the clothes-rack, which was his tent when he camped out on rainydays, to the sink, which was his oasis in the desert of the basementfloor. This kitchen was a favorite playground of The Boy, and about thatkitchen-table centre many of the happiest of his early reminiscences. Ann Hughes, the cook, was very good to The Boy. She told him stories, and taught him riddles, all about a certain "Miss Netticoat, " who wore awhite petticoat, and who had a red nose, and about whom there stilllingers a queer, contradictory legend to the effect that "the longer shestands the shorter she grows. " The Boy always felt that, on account ofher nose, there was a peculiar bond of sympathy between little MissNetticoat and himself. As he was all boy in his games, he would never cherish anything but aboy-doll, generally a Highlander, in kilts and with a glengarry, thatcame off! And although he became foreman of a juvenile hook-and-laddercompany before he was five, and would not play with girls at all, he hadone peculiar feminine weakness. His grand passion was washing andironing. And Ann Hughes used to let him do all the laundry-workconnected with the wash-rags and his own pocket-handkerchiefs, intowhich, regularly, every Wednesday, he burned little brown holes with thetoy flat-iron, which _would_ get too hot. But Johnny Robertson andJoe Stuart and the other boys, and even the uncles and the aunts, neverknew anything about that--unless Ann Hughes gave it away! [Illustration: THE BOY PROMOTED TO TROUSERS] The Boy seems to have developed, very early in life, a fondness for newclothes--a fondness which his wife sometimes thinks he has quiteoutgrown. It is recorded that almost his first plainly spoken words were"Coat and hat, " uttered upon his promotion into a more boyish apparelthan the caps and frocks of his infancy. And he remembers verydistinctly his first pair of long trousers, and the impression they madeupon him, in more ways than one. They were a black-and-white check, andto them was attached that especially manly article, the suspender. Theywere originally worn in celebration of the birth of the New Year, in1848 or 1849, and The Boy went to his father's store in Hudson Street, New York, to exhibit them on the next business-day thereafter. Naturallythey excited much comment, and were the subject of sincerecongratulation. And two young clerks of his father, The Boy's uncles, amused themselves, and The Boy, by playing with him a then popular gamecalled "Squails. " They put The Boy, seated, on a long counter, and theyslid him, backward and forward between them, with great skill and nolittle force. But, before the championship was decided, The Boy's motherbroke up the game, boxed the ears of the players, and carried the humandisk home in disgrace; pressing as she went, and not very gently, theseat of The Boy's trousers with the palm of her hand! He remembers nothing more about the trousers, except the fact that for atime he was allowed to appear in them on Sundays and holidays only, andthat he was deeply chagrined at having to go back to knickerbockers atschool and at play. The Boy's first boots were of about this same era. They were what werethen known as "Wellingtons, " and they had legs. The legs had red leathertops, as was the fashion in those days, and the boots were pulled onwith straps. They were always taken off with the aid of the boot-jack ofThe Boy's father, although they could have been removed much more easilywithout the use of that instrument. Great was the day when The Boy firstwore his first boots to school; and great his delight at the sensationhe thought they created when they were exhibited in the primarydepartment. The Boy's first school was a dame's school, kept by a Miss or Mrs. Harrison, in Harrison Street, near the Hudson Street house in which hewas born. He was the smallest child in the establishment, and probably apet of the larger girls, for he remembers going home to his mother intears, because one of them had kissed him behind the class-room door. He saw her often, in later years, but she never tried to do it again! [Illustration: "CRIED, BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN KISSED"] At that school he met his first love, one Phoebe Hawkins, a very sweet, pretty girl, as he recalls her, and, of course, considerably his senior. How far he had advanced in the spelling of proper names at that periodis shown by the well-authenticated fact that he put himself on record, once as "loving his love with an F, because she was Feeby!" Poor Phoebe Hawkins died before she was out of her teens. The familymoved to Poughkeepsie when The Boy was ten or twelve, and his mother andhe went there one day from Red Hook, which was their summer home, tocall upon his love. When they asked, at the railroad-station, where theHawkinses lived and how they could find the house, they were told thatthe carriages for the funeral would meet the next train. And, utterlyunprepared for such a greeting, for at latest accounts she had been inperfect health, they stood, with her friends, by the side of Phoebe'sopen grave. In his mind's eye The Boy, at the end of forty years, can see it all;and his childish grief is still fresh in his memory. He had lost a birdand a cat who were very dear to his heart, but death had never beforeseemed so real to him; never before had it come so near home. He neverplayed "funeral" again. In 1851 or 1852 The Boy went to another dame's school. It was kept byMiss Kilpatrick, on Franklin or North Moore Street. From this, as hegrew in years, he was sent to the Primary Department of the North MooreStreet Public School, at the corner of West Broadway, where he remainedthree weeks, and where he contracted a whooping-cough which lasted himthree months. The other boys used to throw his hat upon an awning in theneighborhood, and then throw their own hats up under the awning in orderto bounce The Boy's hat off--an amusement for which he never much cared. They were not very nice boys, anyway, especially when they made fun ofhis maternal grandfather, who was a trustee of the school, and whosometimes noticed The Boy after the morning prayers were said. Thegrandfather was very popular in the school. He came in every day, stepped upon the raised platform at the principal's desk, and said inhis broad Scotch, "Good morning, boys!" to which the entire body ofpupils, at the top of their lungs, and with one voice, replied, "_G-o-o-d morning, Mr. Scott!_" This was considered a great feature inthe school; and strangers used to come from all over the city to witnessit. Somehow it made The Boy a little bit ashamed; he does not know why. He would have liked it well enough, and been touched by it, too, if ithad been some other boy's grandfather. The Boy's father was presentonce--The Boy's first day; but when he discovered that the President ofthe Board of Trustees was going to call on him for a speech he ran away;and The Boy would have given all his little possessions to have runafter him. The Boy knew then, as well as he knows now, how his fatherfelt; and he thinks of that occasion every time he runs away from someafter-dinner or occasional speech which he, himself, is called upon tomake. [Illustration: "GOOD MORNING, BOYS"] After his North Moore Street experiences The Boy was sent to study undermen teachers in boys' schools; and he considered then that he was grownup. The Boy, as has been said, was born without the sense of spell. The Ruleof Three, it puzzled him, and fractions were as bad; and the properplacing of e and i, or i and e, the doubling of letters in the middle ofwords, and how to treat the addition of a suffix in "y" or "tion""almost drove him mad, " from his childhood up. He hated to go to school, but he loved to _play_ school; and when Johnny Robertson and he were notconducting a pompous, public funeral--a certain oblong hat-brush, with arosewood back, studded with brass tacks, serving as a coffin, in whichlay the body of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, or the Duke of Wellington, all of whom died when Johnny and The Boy were about eight yearsold--they were teaching each other the three immortal and exceedinglytrying "R's"--reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic--in a play-school. Theirfavorite spelling-book was a certain old cook-book, discarded by thehead of the kitchen, and considered all that was necessary for theireducational purpose. From this, one afternoon, Johnnie gave out"Dough-nut, " with the following surprising result. Conscious of thepuzzling presence of certain silent consonants and vowels, The Boy thusset it down: "D-O, dough, N-O-U-G-H-T, nut--doughnut!" and he went uphead in a class of one, neither teacher nor pupil perceiving themarvellous transposition. All The Boy's religious training was received at home, and almost hisfirst text-book was "The Shorter Catechism, " which, he confesses, hehated with all his little might. He had to learn and recite the answersto those awful questions as soon as he could recite at all, and, foryears, without the slightest comprehension as to what it was all about. Even to this day he cannot tell just what "Effectual Calling, " or"Justification, " is; and I am sure that he shed more tears over"Effectual Calling" than would blot out the record of any number ofinfantile sins. He made up his youthful mind that if he could not besaved without "Effectual Calling"--whatever that was--he did not want tobe saved at all. But he has thought better of it since. [Illustration: PLAYING "SCHOOL"] It is proper to affirm here that The Boy did not acquire hisoccasional swear-words from "The Shorter Catechism. " They were born inhim, as a fragment of Original Sin; and they came out of him innocentlyand unwittingly, and only for purposes of proper emphasis, long beforethe days of "Justification, " and even before he knew his A, B, C's. His earliest visit to Scotland was made when he was but four or fiveyears of age, and long before he had assumed the dignity of trousers, orhad been sent to school. His father had gone to the old home at St. Andrews hurriedly, upon the receipt of the news of the serious illnessof The Boy's grandmother, who died before they reached her. Naturally, The Boy has little recollection of that sad month of December, spent inhis grandfather's house, except that it _was_ sad. The weather was coldand wet; the house, even under ordinary circumstances, could not havebeen a very cheerful one for a youngster who had no companions of hisown age. It looked out upon the German Ocean--which at that time of theyear was always in a rage, or in the sulks--and it was called "Peep o'Day, " because it received the very first rays of the sun as he rose uponthe British Isles. The Boy's chief amusement was the feeding of "flour-scones" andoat-cakes to an old goat, who lived in the neighborhood, and in dailywalks with his grandfather, who seemed to find some little comfort andentertainment in the lad's childish prattle. He was then almost the onlygrandchild; and the old man was very proud of his manner and appearance, and particularly amused at certain gigantic efforts on The Boy's part toadapt his own short legs to the strides of his senior's long ones. After they had interviewed the goat, and had watched the wrecks withwhich the wild shore was strewn, and had inspected the Castle in ruins, and the ruins of the Cathedral, The Boy would be shown his grandmother'snew-made grave, and his own name in full--a common name in thefamily--upon the family tomb in the old kirk-yard; all of which musthave been very cheering to The Boy; although he could not read it forhimself. And then, which was better, they would stand, hand in hand, fora long time in front of a certain candy-shop window, in which wasdisplayed a little regiment of lead soldiers, marching in double filetowards an imposing and impregnable tin fortress on the heights ofbarley-sugar. Of this spectacle they never tired; and they used todiscuss how The Boy would arrange them if they belonged to him; with asneaking hope on The Boy's part that, some day, they were to be his veryown. [Illustration: THE BOY'S SCOTCH GRANDFATHER] At the urgent request of the grandfather, the American contingentremained in St. Andrews until the end of the year; and The Boy stillremembers vividly, and he will never forget, the dismal failure of"Auld Lang Syne" as it was sung by the family, with clasped hands, asthe clock struck and the New Year began. He sat up for the occasion--or, rather, was waked up for the occasion; and of all that family group hehas been, for a decade or more, the only survivor. The mother of thehouse was but lately dead; the eldest son, and his son, were going, thenext day, to the other side of the world; and every voice broke beforethe familiar verse came to an end. As The Boy went off to his bed he was told that his grandfather hadsomething for him, and he stood at his knee to receive--a Bible! That itwas to be the lead soldiers and the tin citadel he never for a momentdoubted; and the surprise and disappointment were very great. He seemsto have had presence of mind enough to conceal his feelings, and to kissand thank the dear old man for his gift. But as he climbed slowly up thestairs, in front of his mother, and with his Bible under his arm, sheoverheard him sob to himself, and murmur, in his great disgust: "Well, he has given me a book! And I wonder how in thunder he thinks I am goingto read his damned Scotch!" This display of precocious profanity and of innate patriotism, upon thepart of a child who could not read at all, gave unqualified pleasure tothe old gentleman, and he never tired of telling the story as long as helived. The Boy never saw the grandfather again. He had gone to the kirk-yard, to stay, before the next visit to St. Andrews was made; and now thatkirk-yard holds everyone of The Boy's name and blood who is left in thetown. The Boy was taught, from the earliest awakening of his reasoning powers, that truth was to be told and to be respected, and that nothing was morewicked or more ungentlemanly than a broken promise. He learned veryearly to do as he was told, and not to do, under any consideration, whathe had said he would not do. Upon this last point he was almost morbidlyconscientious, although once, literally, he "beat about the bush. " Hisaunt Margaret, always devoted to plants and to flowers, had, on the backstoop of his grandfather's house, a little grove of orange and lemontrees, in pots. Some of these were usually in fruit or in flower, andthe fruit to The Boy was a great temptation. He was very fond oforanges, and it seemed to him that a "home-made" orange, which he hadnever tasted, must be much better than a grocer's orange; as home-madecake was certainly preferable, even to the wonderful cakes made by theprofessional Mrs. Milderberger. He watched those little green orangesfrom day to day, as they gradually grew big and yellow in the sun. Hepromised faithfully that he would not pick any of them, but he had anotion that some of them might drop off. He never shook the trees, because he said he would not. But he shook the stoop! And he hung aboutthe bush, which he was too honest to beat. One unusually temptingorange, which he had known from its bud-hood, finally overcame him. Hedid not pick it off, he did not shake it off; he compromised with hisconscience by lying flat on his back and biting off a piece of it. Itwas not a very good action, nor was it a very good orange, and for thatreason, perhaps, he went home immediately and told on himself. He toldhis mother. He did not tell his aunt Margaret. His mother did not seemto be as much shocked at his conduct as he was. But, in her own quietway, she gave him to understand that promises were not made to becracked any more than they were made to be broken--that he had beenfalse to himself in heart, if not in deed, and that he must go back andmake it "all right" with his aunt Margaret. She did not seem to be verymuch shocked, either; he could not tell why. But they punished The Boy. They made him eat the rest of the orange! [Illustration: THE HOUSE OF THE BOY'S GRANDFATHER--CORNER OF HUDSON AND NORTH MOORE STREETS] He lost all subsequent interest in that tropical glade, and he has nevercared much for domestic oranges since. Among the many bumps which are still conspicuously absent in The Boy'sphrenological development are the bumps of Music and Locality. Hewhistled as soon as he acquired front teeth; and he has been singing"God Save the Queen" at the St. Andrew's Society dinners, on Novemberthe 30th, ever since he came of age. But that is as far as his sense ofharmony goes. He took music-lessons for three quarters, and then hismother gave it up in despair. The instrument was a piano. The Boy couldnot stretch an octave with his right hand, the little finger of whichhad been broken by a shinny-stick; and he could not do anything whateverwith his left hand. He was constantly dropping his bass-notes, which, hesaid, were "understood. " And even Miss Ferguson--most patient ofteachers--declared that it was of no use. The piano to The Boy has been the most offensive of instruments eversince. And when his mother's old piano, graceful in form, and withcurved legs which are still greatly admired, lost its tone, and wastransformed into a sideboard, he felt, for the first time, that musichad charms. He had to practise half an hour a day, by a thirty-minute sand-glassthat could _not_ be set ahead; and he shed tears enough over "TheCarnival of Venice" to have raised the tide in the Grand Canal. Theyblurred the sharps and the flats on the music-books--those tears; theyran the crotchets and the quavers together, and, rolling down hischeeks, they even splashed upon his not very clean little hands; and, literally, they covered the keys with mud. [Illustration: "ALWAYS IN THE WAY"] Another serious trial to The Boy was dancing-school. In the first place, he could not turn round without becoming dizzy; in the second place, hecould not learn the steps to turn round with; and in the third place, when he did dance he had to dance with a girl! There was not a boy inall Charraud's, or in all Dodworth's, who could escort a girl back toher seat, after the dance was over, in better time, or make his"thank-you bow" with less delay. His only voluntary terpsichorean effortat a party was the march to supper; and the only steps he ever took withanything like success were during the promenade in the lancers. In"hands-all-round" he invariably started with the wrong hand; and if inthe set there were girls big enough to wear long dresses, he neverfailed to tear such out at the gathers. If anybody fell down in thepolka it was always The Boy; and if anybody bumped into anybody else, The Boy was always the bumper, unless his partner could hold him up andsteer him straight. Games, at parties, he enjoyed more than dancing, although he did notcare very much for "Pillows and Keys, " until he became courageous enoughto kneel before somebody except his maiden aunts. "Porter" was lessembarrassing, because, when the door was shut, nobody but the littlegirl who called him but could tell whether he kissed her or not. Allthis happened a long time ago! The only social function in which The Boy took any interest whatever wasthe making of New-Year's calls. Not that he cared to make New-Year'scalls in themselves, but because he wanted to make more New-Year's callsthan were made by any other boy. His "list, " based upon last year'slist, was commenced about February 1; and it contained the names ofevery person whom The Boy knew, or thought he knew, whether that personknew The Boy or not, from Mrs. Penrice, who boarded opposite the BowlingGreen, to the Leggats and the Faures, who lived near Washington ParadeGround, the extreme social limits of his city in those days. He usuallybegan by making a formal call upon his own mother, who allowed him totaste the pickled oysters as early as ten in the morning; and heinvariably wound up by calling upon Ann Hughes in the kitchen, where hemet the soap-fat man, who was above his profession, and likewise thesexton of Ann Hughes's church, who generally came with Billy, the barberon the corner of Franklin Street. There were certain calls The Boyalways made with his father, during which he did not partake of pickledoysters; but he had pickled oysters everywhere else; and they neverseemed to do him any serious harm. [Illustration: READY FOR A NEW-YEAR'S CALL] The Boy, if possible, kept his new overcoat until New Year's Day--and henever left it in the hall when he called! He always wore new green kidgloves--why green?--fastened at the wrists with a single hook and eye;and he never took off his kid gloves when he called, except on thatparticular New Year's Day when his aunt Charlotte gave him thebloodstone seal-ring, which, at first, was too big for his littlefinger, --the only finger on which a seal-ring _could_ be worn--and hadto be made temporarily smaller with a piece of string. When he received, the next New Year, new studs and a scarf-pin--allbloodstones, to match the ring--he exhibited no little ingenuity oftoilet in displaying them both, because studs are hardly visible whenone wears a scarf, unless the scarf is kept out of the perpendicular bystuffing one end of it into the sleeve of a jacket; which requiresconstant attention and a good deal of bodily contortion. When The Boy met Johnny Robertson or Joe Stuart making calls, they neverrecognized each other, except when they were calling together, which didnot often occur. It was an important rule in their social code to appearas strangers in-doors, although they would wait for each other outside, and compare lists. When they _did_ present themselves collectively inany drawing-room, one boy--usually The Boy's cousin Lew--was detailed towhisper "T. T. " when he considered that the proper limit of the callwas reached. "T. T. " stood for "Time to Travel"; and at the signal allconversation was abruptly interrupted, and the party trooped out insingle file. The idea was not original with the boys. It was borrowedfrom the hook-and-ladder company, which made all _its_ calls in a body, and in two of Kipp and Brown's stages, hired for the entire day. Theboys always walked. The great drawbacks to the custom of making New-Year's calls were thecalls which _had_ to be made after the day's hard work was supposed tobe over, and when The Boy and his father, returning home very tired, were told that they _must_ call upon Mrs. Somebody, and upon Mrs. Somebody-else, whom they had neglected to visit, because the husbandsand the sons of these ladies had called upon the mother of The Boy. NewYear's Day was not the shortest day of the year, by any means, but itwas absolutely necessary to return the Somebody's call, no matter howlate the hour, or how tired the victims of the social law. And it boredthe ladies of the Somebody household as much as it bored the father andThe Boy. [Illustration: A NEW-YEAR'S CALL] The Boy was always getting lost. The very first time he went out alonehe got lost! Told not to go off the block, he walked as far as thecorner of Leonard Street, put his arm around the lamp-post, swunghimself in a circle, had his head turned the wrong way, and marched off, at a right angle, along the side street, with no home visible anywhere, and not a familiar sign in sight. A ship at sea without a rudder, asolitary wanderer in the Great American Desert without a compass, couldnot have been more utterly astray. The Boy was so demoralized that heforgot his name and address; and when a kindly policeman picked him up, and carried him over the way, to the Leonard Street station-house foridentification, he felt as if the end of everything had come. It was badenough to be arrested, but how was he to satisfy his own conscience, andexplain matters to his mother, when it was discovered that he hadbroken his solemn promise, and crossed the street? He had nopocket-handkerchief; and he remembers that he spoiled the long silkstreamers of his Glengarry bonnet by wiping his eyes upon them. He wasrecognized by his Forty-second-plaid gingham frock, a familiar object inthe neighborhood, and he was carried back to his parents, who had nothad time to miss him, and who, consequently, were not distracted. Helost nothing by the adventure but himself, his self-respect, a pint oftears--and one shoe. He was afterwards lost in Greenwich Street, having gone there on theback step of an ice-cart; and once he was conveyed as far as the HudsonRiver Railroad Depot, at Chambers Street, on his sled, which he hadhitched to the milkman's wagon, and could not untie. This was veryserious, indeed; for The Boy realized that he had not only lost himselfbut his sleigh, too. Aunt Henrietta found The Boy sitting disconsolatelyin front of Wall's bake-shop; but the sleigh did not turn up for severaldays. It was finally discovered, badly scratched, in the possession of"The Head of the Rovers. " "The Hounds" and "The Rovers" were rival bands of boys, not in The Boy'sset, who for many years made out-door life miserable to The Boy and tohis friends. They threw stones and mud at each other, and at everybodyelse; and The Boy was not infrequently blamed for the windows theybroke. They punched all the little boys who were better dressed thanthey were, and they were even depraved enough, and mean enough, to tellthe driver every time The Boy or Johnny Robertson attempted to "cutbehind. " [Illustration: TOM RILEY'S LIBERTY POLE] There was also a band of unattached guerillas who aspired to be, andoften pretended to be, either "Hounds" or "Rovers"--they did not carewhich. They always hunted in couples, and if they met The Boy alone theyasked him to which of the organizations he himself belonged. If he saidhe was a "Rover, " they claimed to be "Hounds, " and pounded him. If hedeclared himself in sympathy with the "Hounds, " they hoisted the"Rovers'" colors, and punched him again. If he disclaimed bothassociations, they punched him anyway, on general principles. "The Headof the Rovers" was subsequently killed, in front of Tom Riley'sliberty-pole in Franklin Street, in a fireman's riot, and "The Chief ofthe Hounds, " who had a club-foot, became a respectable egg-merchant, with a stand in Washington Market, near the Root-beer Woman's place ofbusiness, on the south side. The Boy met two of the gang near theDesbrosses Street Ferry only the other day; but they did not recognizeThe Boy. The only spot where The Boy felt really safe from the interference of"The Hounds" and "The Rovers" was in St. John's Square, that delightfuloasis in the desert of brick and mortar and cobble-stones which wasknown as the Fifth Ward. It was a private enclosure, bounded on thenorth by Laight Street, on the south by Beach Street, on the east byVarick Street, and on the west by Hudson Street; and its site is nowoccupied by the great freight-warehouses of the New York Central andHudson River Railroad Company. In the "Fifties, " and long before, it was a private park, to which onlythe property owners in its immediate neighborhood had access. Itpossessed fine old trees, winding gravel-walks, and meadows of grass. Inthe centre was a fountain, whereupon, in the proper season, the childrenwere allowed to skate on both feet, which was a great improvement overthe one-foot gutter-slides outside. The Park was surrounded by a highiron railing, broken here and there by massive gates, to which The Boyhad a key. But he always climbed over. It was a point of etiquette, inThe Boy's set, to climb over on all occasions, whether the gates wereunlocked or not. And The Boy, many a time, has been known to climb overa gate, although it stood wide open! He not infrequently tore hisclothes on the sharp spikes by which the gates were surmounted; but thatmade no difference to The Boy--until he went home! The Boy once had a fight in the Park, with Bill Rice, about a certainlignum-vitę peg-top, of which The Boy was very fond, and which Bill Ricekicked into the fountain. The Boy got mad, which was wrong and foolishof The Boy; and The Boy, also, got licked. And The Boy never could makehis mother understand why he was silly and careless enough to cut hisunder-lip by knocking it against Bill Rice's knuckles. Bill subsequentlyapologized by saying that he did not mean to kick the top into thefountain. He merely meant to kick the top. And it was all made up. [Illustration: THE BOY ALWAYS CLIMBED OVER] The Boy did not fight much. His nose was too long. It seemed that hecould not reach the end of it with his fists when he fought; and thatthe other fellows could always reach it with theirs, no matter howfar out, or how scientifically, his left arm was extended. It was "One, two, three--and recover"--on The Boy's nose! The Boy was a good runner. His legs were the only part of his anatomy which seemed to him as longas his nose. And his legs saved his nose in many a fierce encounter. The Boy first had daily admission to St. John's Park after the familymoved to Hubert Street, when The Boy was about ten years old; and forhalf a decade or more it was his happy hunting-ground--when he was notkept in school! It was a particularly pleasant place in the autumn andwinter months; for he could then gather "smoking-beans" andhorse-chestnuts; and he could roam at will all over the grounds withoutany hateful warning to "Keep Off the Grass. " The old gardener, generally a savage defender of the place, who had nosense of humor as it was exhibited in boy nature, sometimes let the boysrake the dead leaves into great heaps and make bonfires of them, if thewind happened to be in the right direction. And then what larks! Thebonfire was a house on fire, and the great garden-roller, a very heavyaffair, was "Engine No. 42, " with which the boys ran to put the fireout. They all shouted as loudly and as unnecessarily as real firemendid, in those days; the foreman gave his orders through a real trumpet, and one boy had a real fireman's hat with "Engine No. 42" on it. He waschief engineer, but he did not run with the machine: not because he waschief engineer, but because while in active motion he could not keep hishat on. It was his father's hat, and its extraordinary weight wasconsiderably increased by the wads of newspaper packed in the lining tomake it fit. The chief engineer held the position for life on thestrength of the hat, which he would not lend to anybody else. The restof the officers of the company were elected, _viva voce_, every timethere was a fire. This entertainment came to an end, like everything else, when thegardener chained the roller to the tool-house, after Bob Stuart fellunder the machine and was rolled so flat that he had to be carried homeon a stretcher, made of overcoats tied together by the sleeves. That isthe only recorded instance in which the boys, particularly Bob, left thePark without climbing over. And the bells sounded a "general alarm. " Thedent made in the path by Bob's body was on exhibition until the nextsnow-storm. [Illustration: THE CHIEF ENGINEER] The favorite amusements in the Park were shinny, baseball, one-old-cat, and fires. The Columbia Baseball Club was organized in 1853 or 1854. Ithad nine members, and The Boy was secretary and treasurer. The uniformconsisted chiefly of a black leather belt with the initials [reversedC]B[reversed B]C in white letters, hand-painted, and generally turnedthe wrong way. The first base was an ailantus-tree; the second basewas another ailantus-tree; the third base was a button-ball-tree; thehome base was a marble head-stone, brought for that purpose from an oldburying-ground not far away; and "over the fence" was a home-run. Aplayer was caught out on the second bounce, and he was "out" if hit by aball thrown at him as he ran. The Boy was put out once by a crack on theear, which put The Boy out very much. "The Hounds" and "The Rovers" challenged "The Columbias" repeatedly. Butthat was looked upon simply as an excuse to get into the Park, and thechallenges were never accepted. The challengers were forced to contentthemselves with running off with the balls which went over the fence; anaction on their part which made home-runs through that medium veryunpopular and very expensive. In the whole history of "The Hounds" and"The Rovers, " nothing that they pirated was ever returned but The Boy'ssled. Contemporary with the Columbia Baseball Club was a so-called"Mind-cultivating Society, " organized by the undergraduates ofMcElligott's School, in Greene Street. The Boy, as usual, was secretarywhen he was not treasurer. The object was "Debates, " but all thedebating was done at the business meetings, and no mind ever becamesufficiently cultivated to master the intricacies of parliamentary law. The members called it a Secret Society, and on their jackets they wore, as conspicuously as possible, a badge-pin consisting of a blue enamelledcirclet containing Greek letters in gold. In a very short time thebadge-pin was all that was left of the Society; but to this day thesecret of the Society has never been disclosed. No one ever knew, orwill ever know, what the Greek letters stood for--not even the membersthemselves. The Boy was never a regular member of any fire-company, but almost aslong as the old Volunteer Fire Department existed, he was what was knownas a "Runner. " He was attached, in a sort of brevet way, to "Pearl HoseNo. 28, " and, later, to "11 Hook and Ladder. " He knew all the firedistricts into which the city was then divided; his ear was alwaysalert, even in the St. John's Park days, for the sound of thealarm-bell, and he ran to every fire at any hour of the day or night, upto ten o'clock P. M. He did not do much when he got to the fire but standaround and "holler. " But once--a proud moment--he helped steer thehook-and-ladder truck to a false alarm in Macdougal Street--and once--avery proud moment, indeed--he went into a tenement-house, near Dr. Thompson's church, in Grand Street, and carried two negro babiesdown-stairs in his arms. There was no earthly reason why the babiesshould not have been left in their beds; and the colored family did notlike it, because the babies caught cold! But The Boy, for once in hislife, tasted the delights of self-conscious heroism. [Illustration: "MRS. ROBERTSON DESCENDED IN FORCE UPON THE DEVOTED BAND"] When The Boy, as a bigger boy, was not running to fires he was going totheatres, the greater part of his allowance being spent in thebox-offices of Burton's Chambers Street house, of Brougham's Lyceum, corner of Broome Street and Broadway, of Niblo's, and of Castle Garden. There were no afternoon performances in those days, except now and thenwhen the Ravels were at Castle Garden; and the admission to pit andgalleries was usually two shillings--otherwise, twenty-five cents. Hisfirst play, so far as he remembers, was "The Stranger, " a play dismalenough to destroy any taste for the drama, one would suppose, in anyjuvenile mind. He never cared very much to see "The Stranger" again, butnothing that was a play was too deep or too heavy for him. He never sawthe end of any of the more elaborate productions, unless his father tookhim to the theatre (as once in a while he did), for it was a strict ruleof the house, until The Boy was well up in his teens, that he must be inby ten o'clock. His father did not ask him where he was going, or wherehe had been; but the curfew in Hubert Street tolled at ten. The Boycalculated carefully and exactly how many minutes it took him to run toHubert Street from Brougham's or from Burton's; and by the middle of thesecond act his watch--a small silver affair with a hunting-case, inwhich he could not keep an uncracked crystal--was always in his hand. Henever disobeyed his father, and for years he never knew what became ofClaude Melnotte after he went to the wars; or if Damon got back in timeto save Pythias before the curtain fell. The Boy, naturally, had a mostmeagre notion as to what all these plays were about, but he enjoyed hisfragments of them as he rarely enjoys plays now. Sometimes, in thesedays, when the air is bad, and plays are worse, and big hats are worsethan either, he wishes that he were forced to leave the modernplay-house at nine-forty-five, on pain of no supper that night, ortwenty lines of "Virgil" the next day. [Illustration: THE BOY AS VIRGINIUS] On very stormy afternoons the boys played theatre in the large garret ofThe Boy's Hubert Street house; a convenient closet, with a door and awindow, serving for the Castle of Elsinore in "Hamlet, " for the gunroomof the ship in "Black-eyed Susan, " or for the studio of Phidias in "TheMarble Heart, " as the case might be. "The Brazilian Ape, " as requiringmore action than words, was a favorite entertainment, only they allwanted to play Jocko the Ape; and they would have made no little successout of the "Lady of Lyons" if any of them had been willing to playPauline. Their costumes and properties were slight and not alwaysaccurate, but they could "launch the curse of Rome, " and describe "twohearts beating as one, " in a manner rarely equalled on the regularstage. The only thing they really lacked was an audience, neither LizzieGustin nor Ann Hughes ever being able to sit through more than one actat a time. When The Boy, as Virginius, with his uncle Aleck'ssword-cane, stabbed all the feathers out of the pillow which representedthe martyred Virginia; and when Joe Stuart, as Falstaff, broke thebottom out of Ann Hughes's clothes-basket, the license was revoked, andthe season came to an untimely end. Until the beginning of the weekly, or the fortnightly, sailings of theCollins line of steamers from the foot of Canal Street (a spectaclewhich they never missed in any weather), Joe Stuart, Johnny Robertson, and The Boy played "The Deerslayer" every Saturday in the back-yard ofThe Boy's house. The area-way was Glimmer-glass, in which they fished, and on which they canoed; the back-stoop was Muskrat Castle; the rabbitswere all the wild beasts of the Forest; Johnny was Hawk-Eye, The Boy wasHurry Harry, and Joe Stuart was Chingachgook. Their only food washalf-baked potatoes--sweet potatoes if possible--which they cookedthemselves and ate ravenously, with butter and salt, if Ann Hughes wasamiable, and entirely unseasoned if Ann was disposed to be disobliging. They talked what they fondly believed was the dialect of the Delawaretribe, and they were constantly on the lookout for the approaches ofRivenoak, or the Panther, who were represented by any member of thefamily who chanced to stray into the enclosure. They carefully turnedtheir toes in when they walked, making so much effort in this matterthat it took a great deal of dancing-school to get their feet back tothe "first position" again; and they even painted their faces when theywere on the war-path. The rabbits had the worst of it! The campaign came to a sudden and disastrous conclusion when the hostiletribes, headed by Mrs. Robertson, descended in force upon the devotedband, because Chingachgook broke one of Hawk-Eye's front teeth with anarrow, aimed at the biggest of the rabbits, which was crouching by theside of the roots of the grape-vine, and playing that he was a pantherof enormous size. [Illustration: JOHNNY ROBERTSON] Johnny Robertson and The Boy had one great superstition--to wit, Cracks!For some now inexplicable reason they thought it unlucky to step oncracks; and they made daily and hourly spectacles of themselves in thestreets by the eccentric irregularity of their gait. Now they would takelong strides, like a pair of ostriches, and now short, quick steps, like a couple of robins; now they would hop on both feet, like a braceof sparrows; now they would walk on their heels, now on their toes; nowwith their toes turned in, now with their toes turned out--at rightangles, in a splay-footed way; now they would walk with their feetcrossed, after the manner of the hands of very fancy, old-fashionedpiano-players, skipping from base to treble--over cracks. The wholeperformance would have driven a sensitive drill-sergeant orballet-master to distraction. And when they came to a brick sidewalkthey would go all around the block to avoid it. They could cross HudsonStreet on the cobblestones with great effort, and in great danger ofbeing run over; but they could not possibly travel upon a brickpavement, and avoid the cracks. What would have happened to them if they_did_ step on a crack they did not exactly know. But, for all that, theynever stepped on cracks--of their own free will! The Boy's earliest attempts at versification were found, the other day, in an old desk, and at the end of almost half a century. The copy is inhis own boyish, ill-spelled print; and it bears no date. The presentowner, his aunt Henrietta, well remembers the circumstances and theoccasion, however, having been an active participant in the acts thepoem describes, although she avers that she had no hand in itscomposition. The original, it seems, was transcribed by The Boy uponthe cover of a soap-box, which served as a head-stone to one of thegraves in his family burying-ground, situated in the back-yard of theHudson Street house, from which he was taken before he was nine years ofage. The monument stood against the fence, and this is the legend itbore--rhyme, rhythm, metre, and orthography being carefully preserved: "Three little kitens of our old cat Were berrid this day in this grassplat. They came to there deth in an old slop pale, And after loosing their breth They were pulled out by the tale. These three little kitens have returned to their maker, And were put in the grave by The Boy, Undertaker. " At about this period The Boy officiated at the funeral of another cat, but in a somewhat more exalted capacity. It was the Cranes' cat, at RedHook--a Maltese lady, who always had yellow kittens. The Boy does notremember the cause of the cat's death, but he thinks that Uncle AndrewKnox ran over her, with the "dyspepsia-wagon"--so called because it hadno springs. Anyway, the cat died, and had to be buried. The grave wasdug in the garden of the tavern, near the swinging-gate to the stable, and the whole family attended the services. Jane Purdy, in a deep crapeveil, was the chief mourner; The Boy's aunts were pall-bearers, in whitescarves; The Boy was the clergyman; while the kittens--who did not lookat all like their mother--were on hand in a funeral basket, with blackshoestrings tied around their necks. [Illustration: JANE PURDY] Jane was supposed to be the disconsolate widow. She certainly looked thepart to perfection; and it never occurred to any of them that a cat, with kittens, could not possibly have left a widow behind her. The ceremony was most impressive; the bereaved kittens were loud intheir grief; when, suddenly, the village-bell tolled for the death of anold gentleman whom everybody loved, and the comedy became a tragedy. Theolder children were conscience-stricken at the mummery, and they ran, demoralized and shocked, into the house, leaving The Boy and the kittensbehind them. Jane Purdy tripped over her veil, and one of the kittenswas stepped on in the crush. But The Boy proceeded with the funeral. When The Boy got as far as a room of his own, papered with scenes fromcircus-posters, and peopled by tin soldiers, he used to play that hisbed was the barge _Mayflower_, running from Barrytown to the foot ofJay Street, North River, and that he was her captain and crew. She madenightly trips between the two ports; and by day, when she was not tiedup to the door-knob--which was Barrytown--she was moored to the handleof the wash-stand drawer--which was the dock at New York. She never waswrecked, and she never ran aground; but great was the excitement of TheBoy when, as not infrequently was the case, on occasions of sweeping, Hannah, the up-stairs girl, set her adrift. The _Mayflower_ was seriously damaged by fire once, owing to thecareless use, by a deck-hand, of a piece of punk on the night before theFourth of July; this same deck-hand being nearly blown up early the verynext morning by a bunch of fire-crackers which went off--bythemselves--in his lap. He did not know, for a second or two, whetherthe barge had burst her boiler or had been struck by lightning! [Illustration: JOE STUART] Barrytown is the river port of Red Hook--a charming Dutchess Countyhamlet in which The Boy spent the first summer of his life, and in whichhe spent the better part of every succeeding summer for a quarter of acentury; and he sometimes goes there yet, although many of the names heknows were carved, in the long-agoes, on the tomb. He always went up anddown, in those days, on the _Mayflower_, the real boat of that name, which was hardly more real to him than was the trundle-bed of hisvivid, nightly imagination. They sailed from New York at five o'clockP. M. , an hour looked for, and longed for, by The Boy, as the verybeginning of summer, with all its delightful young charms; and theyarrived at their destination about five of the clock the next morning, by which time The Boy was wide awake, and on the lookout for Lasher'sStage, in which he was to travel the intervening three miles. Andeagerly he recognized, and loved, every landmark on the road. Barringer's Corner; the half-way tree; the road to the creek and toMadame Knox's; and, at last, the village itself, and the tavern, and thetobacco-factory, and Massoneau's store, over the way; and then, whenJane Purdy had shown him the new kittens and the little chickens, and hehad talked to "Fido" and "Fanny, " or to Fido alone after Fanny wasstolen by gypsies--Fanny was Fido's wife, and a poodle--he rushed off tosee Bob Hendricks, who was just his own age, barring a week, and who hasbeen his warm friend for more than half a century; and then what goodtimes The Boy had! Bob was possessed of a grandfather who could make kites, and swings, andparallel-bars, and things which The Boy liked; and Bob had a mother--andhe has her yet, happy Bob!--who made the most wonderful of cookies, perfectly round, with sparkling globules of sugar on them, and littleround holes in the middle; and Bob and The Boy for days, and weeks, andmonths together hen's-egged, and rode in the hay-carts, and went for themail every noon, and boosted each other up into the bestpound-sweet-tree in the neighborhood; and pelted each other with littlegreen apples, which weighed about a pound to the peck; and gatheredcurrants and chestnuts in season; and with long straws they sucked newcider out of bung-holes; and learned to swim; and caught their firstfish; and did all the pleasant things that all boys do. At Red Hook they smoked their first cigar--half a cigar, left by unclePhil--and they wished they hadn't! And at Red Hook they disobeyed theirmothers once, and were found out. They were told not to go wading in thecreek upon pain of not going to the creek at all; and for weeks theywere deprived of the delights of the society of the Faure boys, throughwhose domain the creek ran, because, when they went to bed on thatdisastrous night, it was discovered that Bob had on The Boy's stockings, and that The Boy was wearing Bob's socks; a piece of circumstantialevidence which convicted them both. When the embargo was raised and theynext went to the creek, it is remembered that Bob tore his trousers inclimbing over a log, and that The Boy fell in altogether. [Illustration: BOB HENDRICKS] The Boy usually kept his promises, however, and he was known even tokeep a candy-cane--twenty-eight inches long, red and white striped likea barber's pole--for a fortnight, because his mother limited him to theconsumption of two inches a day. But he could not keep any knees to histrousers; and when The Boy's mother threatened to sew buttons--brassbuttons, with sharp and penetrating eyes--on to that particular portionof the garment in question, he wanted to know, in all innocence, howthey expected him to say his prayers! One of Bob's earliest recollections of The Boy is connected with a toyexpress-wagon on four wheels, which could almost turn around on its ownaxis. The Boy imported this vehicle into Red Hook one summer, and theyused it for the transportation of their chestnuts and their currants andtheir apples, green and ripe, and the mail, and most of the dust of theroad; and Bob thinks, to this day, that nothing in all these after yearshas given him so much profound satisfaction and enjoyment as did thatlittle cart. Bob remembers, too--what The Boy tries to forget--The Boy's dailypractice of half an hour on the piano borrowed by The Boy's mother fromMrs. Bates for that dire purpose. Mrs. Bates's piano is almost the onlyunpleasant thing associated with Red Hook in all The Boy's experience ofthat happy village. It was pretty hard on The Boy, because, in TheBoy's mind, Red Hook should have been a place of unbroken delights. ButThe Boy's mother wanted to make an all-round man of him, and when hismother said so, of course it had to be done or tried. Bob used to gowith The Boy as far as Dr. Bates's house, and then hang about on thegate until The Boy was released; and he asserts that the music whichcame out of the window in response to The Boy's inharmonic touch had nopower whatever to soothe his own savage young breast. He attributes allhis later disinclination to music to those dreary thirty minutes ofimpatient waiting. The piano and its effect upon The Boy's uncertain temper _may_ have beenthe innocent cause of the first, and only, approach to a quarrel whichThe Boy and Bob ever had. The prime cause, however, was, of course, agirl! They were playing, that afternoon, at Cholwell Knox's, whenCholwell said something about Julia Booth which Bob resented, and therewas a fight, The Boy taking Cholwell's part; why, he cannot say, unlessit was because of his jealousy of Bob's affection and admiration forthat charming young teacher, who won all hearts in the village, TheBoy's among the number. Anyway, Bob was driven from the field by thehard little green apples of the Knox orchard; more hurt, he declares, bythe desertion of his ally than by all the blows he received. [Illustration: MUSIC LESSONS] It never happened again, dear Bob, and, please God, it never will! Another trouble The Boy had in Red Hook was Dr. McNamee, a residentdentist, who operated upon The Boy, now and then. He was a little moregentle than was The Boy's city dentist, Dr. Castle; but he hurt, for allthat. Dr. Castle lived in Fourth Street, opposite Washington ParadeGround, and on the same block with Clarke and Fanning's school. And tothis day The Boy would go miles out of his way rather than pass Dr. Castle's house. Personally Dr. Castle was a delightful man, who told TheBoy amusing stories, which The Boy could not laugh at while his mouthwas wide open. But professionally Dr. Castle was to The Boy an awfulhorror, of whom he always dreamed when his dreams were particularly bad. As he looks back upon his boyhood, with its frequent toothache and itslong hours in the dentists' chairs, The Boy sometimes thinks that if hehad his life to live over again, and could not go through it withoutteeth, he would prefer not to be born at all! It has rather amused The Boy, in his middle age, to learn of theimpressions he made upon Red Hook in his extreme youth. Bob, as has beenshown, associates him with a little cart, and with a good deal of theconcord of sweet sounds. One old friend remembers nothing but hisphenomenal capacity for the consumption of chicken pot-pie. Another oldfriend can recall the scrupulously clean white duck suits which he woreof afternoons, and also the blue-checked long apron which he was forcedto wear in the mornings; both of them exceedingly distasteful to TheBoy, because the apron was a girl's garment, and because the duck suitmeant "dress-up, " and only the mildest of genteel play; while Bob'ssister dwells chiefly now upon the wonderful valentine The Boy sent onceto Zillah Crane. It was so large that it had to have an especialenvelope made to fit it; and it was so magnificent, and so delicate, that, notwithstanding the envelope, it came in a box of its own. It hadactual lace, and pinkish Cupids reclining on light-blue clouds; and inthe centre of all was a compressible bird-cage, which, when it waspulled out, like an accordion, displayed not a dove merely, but a plaingold ring--a real ring, made of real gold. Nothing like it had ever beenseen before in all Dutchess County; and it was seen and envied by everygirl of Zillah's age between Rhinebeck and Tivoli, between Barrytown andPine Plains. The Boy did an extensive business in the valentine line, in the dayswhen February Fourteenth meant much more to boys than it does now. Hesent sentimental valentines to Phoebe Hawkins and comic valentines toAnn Hughes, both of them written anonymously, and both directed in adisguised hand. But both recipients always knew from whom they came;and, in all probability, neither of them was much affected by thereceipt. The Boy, as he has put on record elsewhere, never really, inhis inmost heart, thought that comic valentines were so very comic, because those that came to him usually reflected upon his nose, or wereilluminated with portraits of gentlemen of all ages adorned withsupernaturally red hair. In later years, when Bob and The Boy could swim--a little--and hadlearned to take care of themselves in water over their heads, themill-pond at Red Hook played an important part in their daily lifethere. They sailed it, and fished it, and camped out on its banks, withEd Curtis--before Ed went to West Point--and with Dick Hawley, JosieBriggs, and Frank Rodgers, all first-rate fellows. But that is anotherstory. The Boy was asked, a year or two ago, to write a paper upon "The Booksof his Boyhood. " And when he came to think the matter over hediscovered, to his surprise, that the Books of his Boyhood consisted ofbut one book! It was bound in two twelvemo green cloth volumes; it borethe date of 1850, and it was filled with pictorial illustrations of "ThePersonal History and Experiences of David Copperfield, the Younger. " Itwas the first book The Boy ever read, and he thought then, andsometimes he thinks now, that it was the greatest book ever written. The traditional books of the childhood of other children came later toThe Boy: "Robinson Crusoe, " and the celebrated "Swiss Family" of thesame name; "The Desert Home, " of Mayne Reid; Marryat's "Peter Simple";"The Leather Stocking Tales"; "Rob Roy"; and "The Three Guardsmen" werewell thumbed and well liked; but they were not The Boy's first love infiction, and they never usurped, in his affections, the place of thetrue account of David Copperfield. It was a queer book to have absorbedthe time and attention of a boy of eight or nine, who had to skip thebig words, who did not understand it all, but who cried, as he has criedbut once since, whenever he came to that dreadful chapter which tellsthe story of the taking away of David's mother, and of David's utter, hopeless desolation over his loss. How the book came into The Boy's possession he cannot now remember, noris he sure that his parents realized how much, or how often, he wasengrossed in its contents. It cheered him in the measles, it comfortedhim in the mumps. He took it to school with him, and he took it to bedwith him; and he read it, over and over again, especially the earlychapters; for he did not care so much for David after David becameTrotwood, and fell in love. When, in 1852, after his grandfather's death, The Boy first saw London, it was not the London of the Romans, the Saxons, or the Normans, or theLondon of the Plantagenets or the Tudors, but the London of theMicawbers and the Traddleses, the London of Murdstone and Grinby, theLondon of Dora's Aunt and of Jip. On his arrival at Euston Station thefirst object upon which his eyes fell was a donkey-cart, a large woodentray on wheels, driven, at a rapid pace, by a long-legged young man, andfollowed, at a pace hardly so rapid, by a boy of about his own age, whoseemed in great mental distress. This was the opening scene. And London, from that moment, became to him, and still remains, a great movingpanorama of David Copperfield. He saw the Orfling, that first evening, snorting along Tottenham CourtRoad; he saw Mealy Potatoes, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, loungingalong Broad Street; he saw Martha disappear swiftly and silently intoone of the dirty streets leading from Seven Dials; he saw innumerablepublic-houses--the Lion, or the Lion and something else--in anyone ofwhich David might have consumed that memorable glass of Genuine Stunningale with a good head on it. As they drove through St. Martin's Lane, andpast a court at the back of the church, he even got a glimpse of theexterior of the shop where was sold a special pudding, made of currants, but dear; a two-pennyworth being no larger than a pennyworth of moreordinary pudding at any other establishment in the neighborhood. And, tocrown all, when he looked out of his back bedroom window, at Morley'sHotel, he discovered that he was looking at the actual bedroom windowsof the Golden Cross on the Strand, in which Steerforth and littleCopperfield had that disastrous meeting which indirectly brought so muchsorrow to so many innocent men and women. This was but the beginning of countless similar experiences, and thebeginning of a love for Landmarks of a more important but hardly of amore delightful character. Hungerford Market and Hungerford Stairs, withthe blacking-warehouse abutting on the water when the tide was in, andon the mud when the tide was out, still stood near Morley's in 1852; andvery close to them stood then, and still stands to-day, the old house inBuckingham Street, Adelphi, where, with Mrs. Crupp, Trotwood Copperfieldfound his lodgings when he began his new life with Spenlow and Jorkins. These chambers, once the home of Clarkson Stanfield, and since of Mr. William Black and of Dr. B. E. Martin, became, in later days, veryfamiliar to The Boy, and still are haunted by the great crowd of theghosts of the past. The Boy has seen there, within a few years, and withhis eyes wide open, the spirits of Traddles, of Micawber, of Steerforth, of Mr. Dick, of Clara Peggotty and Daniel, of Uriah Heep--the lastslept one evening on the sofa pillows before the fire, you mayremember--and of Aunt Betsy herself. But in 1852 he could only look atthe outside of the house, and, now and then, when the door was open, geta glimpse of the stairs down which some one fell and rolled, oneevening, when somebody else said it was Copperfield! The Boy never walked along the streets of London by his father's sideduring that memorable summer without meeting, in fancy, some friend ofDavid's, without passing some spot that David knew, and loved, or hated. And he recognized St. Paul's Cathedral at the first glance, because ithad figured as an illustration on the cover of Peggotty's work-box! Perhaps the event which gave him the greatest pleasure was a casualmeeting with little Miss Moucher in a green omnibus coming from the topof Baker Street to Trafalgar Square. It could not possibly have beenanybody else. There were the same large head and face, the same shortarms. "Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worthmentioning. " The Boy can still hear the pattering of the rain on therattly windows of that lumbering green omnibus; he can remember everydetail of the impressive drive; and Miss Moucher, and the fact of herexistence in the flesh, and there present, wiped from his mind everytrace of Mme. Tussaud's famous gallery, and the waxworks it contained. This was the Book of The Boy's Boyhood. He does not recommend it as theexclusive literature of their boyhood to other boys; but out of it TheBoy knows that he got nothing but what was healthful and helping. Ittaught him to abominate selfish brutality and sneaking falsehood, asthey were exhibited in the Murdstones and the Heeps; it taught him tokeep Charles I. , and other fads, out of his "Memorials"; it taught himto avoid rash expenditure as it was practised by the Micawbers; itshowed him that a man like Steerforth might be the best of good fellowsand at the same time the worst and most dangerous of companions; itshowed, on the other hand, that true friends like Traddles are worthhaving and worth keeping; it introduced him to the devoted, sisterlyaffection of a woman like Agnes; and it proved to him that the roughpea-jacket of a man like Ham Peggotty might cover the simple heart ofas honest a gentleman as ever lived. [Illustration: THE BOY'S FATHER] The Boy, in his time, has been brought in contact with many famous menand women; but upon nothing in his whole experience does he look backnow with greater satisfaction than upon his slight intercourse with thefirst great man he ever knew. Quite a little lad, he was staying at thePulaski House in Savannah, in 1853--perhaps it was in 1855--when hisfather told him to observe particularly the old gentleman with thespectacles, who occupied a seat at their table in the publicdining-room; for, he said, the time would come when The Boy would bevery proud to say that he had breakfasted, and dined, and supped withMr. Thackeray. He had no idea who, or what, Mr. Thackeray was; but hisfather considered him a great man, and that was enough for The Boy. Hedid pay particular attention to Mr. Thackeray, with his eyes and hisears; and one morning Mr. Thackeray paid a little attention to him, ofwhich he is proud, indeed. Mr. Thackeray took The Boy between his knees, and asked his name, and what he intended to be when he grew up. Hereplied, "A farmer, sir. " Why, he cannot imagine, for he never had theslightest inclination towards a farmer's life. And then Mr. Thackerayput his gentle hand upon The Boy's little red head, and said: "Whateveryou are, try to be a good one. " To have been blessed by Thackeray is a distinction The Boy would notexchange for any niche in the Temple of Literary Fame; no laurel crownhe could ever receive would be able to obliterate, or to equal, thesense of Thackeray's touch; and if there be any virtue in the laying onof hands The Boy can only hope that a little of it has descended uponhim. And whatever The Boy is, he has tried, for Thackeray's sake, "to be agood one!" FOUR DOGS WHISKIE AN EAU DE VIE In doggerel lines, Whiskie my dog I sing. These lines are after Virgil, Pope, or some one. His very voice has got a Whiskie Ring. I call him Whiskie, 'cause he's such a rum one. His is a high-whine, and his nip has power, Hot-Scotch his temper, but no Punch is merrier; Not Rye, not Schnappish, he's no Whiskie-Sour. I call him Whiskie--he's a Whis-Skye terrier. FOUR DOGS It was Dr. John Brown, of Edinboro', who once spoke in sincere sympathyof the man who "led a dog-less life. " It was Mr. "Josh Billings" whosaid that in the whole history of the world there is but one thing thatmoney cannot buy, to wit: the wag of a dog's tail. And it was ProfessorJohn C. Van Dyke who declared the other day, in reviewing the artisticcareer of Landseer, that he made his dogs too human. It was the GreatCreator himself who made dogs too human--so human that sometimes theyput humanity to shame. The Boy has been the friend and confidant of Four Dogs who have helpedto humanize him for a quarter of a century and more, and who have soulsto be saved, he is sure. And when he crosses the Stygian River heexpects to find, on the other shore, a trio of dogs wagging their tailsalmost off, in their joy at his coming, and with honest tongues hangingout to lick his hands and his feet. And then he is going, with thesefaithful, devoted dogs at his heels, to talk about dogs with Dr. JohnBrown, Sir Edwin Landseer, and Mr. "Josh Billings. " The first dog, Whiskie, was an alleged Skye terrier, coming, alas! froma clouded, not a clear, sky. He had the most beautiful and the mostperfect head ever seen on a dog, but his legs were altogether too long;and the rest of him, was--just dog. He came into the family in 1867 or1868. He was, at the beginning, not popular with the seniors; but he wasso honest, so ingenuous, so "square, " that he made himself irresistible, and he soon became even dearer to the father and to the mother than hewas to The Boy. Whiskie was not an amiable character, except to his ownpeople. He hated everybody else, he barked at everybody else, andsometimes he bit everybody else--friends of the household as well as thebutcher-boys, the baker-boys, and the borrowers of money who came to thedoor. He had no discrimination in his likes and dislikes, and, naturally, he was not popular, except among his own people. He hated allcats but his own cat, by whom he was bullied in a most outrageous way. Whiskie had the sense of shame and the sense of humor. [Illustration: WHISKIE] One warm summer evening, the family was sitting on the front steps, after a refreshing shower of rain, when Whiskie saw a cat in the street, picking its dainty way among the little puddles of water. With amuttered curse he dashed after the cat without discovering, until withina few feet of it, that it was the cat who belonged to him. He tried tostop himself in his impetuous career, he put on all his brakes, literally skimming along the street railway-track as if he were outsimply for a slide, passing the cat, who gave him a half-contemptuous, half-pitying look; and then, after inspecting the sky to see if the rainwas really over and how the wind was, he came back to his place betweenthe father and The Boy as if it were all a matter of course and ofevery-day occurrence. But he knew they were laughing at him; and if evera dog felt sheepish, and looked sheepish--if ever a dog said, "What anidiot I've made of myself!" Whiskie was that dog. The cat was a martinet in her way, and she demanded all the privilegesof her sex. Whiskie always gave her precedence, and once when he, for amoment, forgot himself and started to go out of the dining-room doorbefore her, she deliberately slapped him in the face; whereupon he drewback instantly, like the gentleman he was, and waited for her to pass. Whiskie was fourteen or fifteen years of age in 1882, when the motherwent to join the father, and The Boy was taken to Spain by a good auntand cousins. Whiskie was left at home to keep house with the two oldservants who had known him all his life, and were in perfect sympathywith him. He had often been left alone before during the family'sfrequent journeyings about the world, the entire establishment beingkept running purely on his account. Usually he did not mind thesolitude; he was well taken care of in their absence, and he felt thatthey were coming back some day. This time he knew it was different. Hewould not be consoled. He wandered listlessly and uselessly about thehouse; into the mother's room, into his master's room; and one morninghe was found in a dark closet, where he had never gone before, dead--ofa broken heart. He had only a stump of a tail, but he will wag it--when next his mastersees him! [Illustration: PUNCH] The second dog was Punch--a perfect, thorough-bred Dandie Dinmont, andthe most intelligent, if not the most affectionate, of the lot. Punchand The Boy kept house together for a year or two, and alone. The firstthing in the morning, the last thing at night, Punch was in evidence. Hewent to the door to see his master safely off; he was sniffing at theinside of the door the moment the key was heard in the latch, no matterhow late at night; and so long as there was light enough he watched forhis master out of the window. Punch, too, had a cat--a son, or agrandson, of Whiskie's cat. Punch's favorite seat was in a chair in thefront basement. Here, for hours, he would look out at thepassers-by--indulging in the study of man, the proper study of hiskind. The chair was what is known as "cane-bottomed, " and through itsperforations the cat was fond of tickling Punch, as he sat. When Punchfelt that the joke had been carried far enough, he would rise in hiswrath, chase the cat out into the kitchen, around the back-yard, intothe kitchen again, and then, perhaps, have it out with the cat under thesink--without the loss of a hair, the use of a claw, or an angry spit orsnarl. Punch and the cat slept together, and dined together, in utterharmony; and the master has often gone up to his own bed, after asolitary cigar, and left them purring and snoring in each other's arms. They assisted at each other's toilets, washed each other's faces, andonce, when Mary Cook was asked what was the matter with Punch's eye, shesaid: "I _think_, Sur, that the cat must have put her finger in it, whenshe combed his bang!" Punch loved everybody. He seldom barked, he never bit. He cared nothingfor clothes, or style, or social position. He was as cordial to a beggaras he would have been to a king; and if thieves had come to breakthrough and steal, Punch, in his unfailing, hospitable amiability, wouldhave escorted them through the house, and shown them where the treasureswere kept. All the children were fond of Punch, who accepted mauling asnever did dog before. His master could carry him up-stairs by the tail, without a murmur of anything but satisfaction on Punch's part; and onefavorite performance of theirs was an amateur representation of "Danielin the Lion's Den, " Punch being all the animals, his master, of course, being the prophet himself. The struggle for victory was something awful. Daniel seemed to be torn limb from limb, Punch, all the time, roaringlike a thousand beasts of the forest, and treating his victim astenderly as if he were wooing a sucking dove. The entertainment--whenthere were young persons at the house--was of nightly occurrence, andalways repeatedly encored. Punch, however, never cared to play Lion tothe Daniel of anybody else. One of Punch's expressions of poetic affection is still preserved by alittle girl who is now grown up, and has little girls of her own. It wasattached to a Christmas-gift--a locket containing a scrap of blue-graywool. And here it is: "Punch Hutton is ready to vow and declare That his friend Milly Barrett's a brick. He begs she'll accept of this lock of his hair; And he sends her his love--and a lick. " Punch's most memorable performance, perhaps, was his appearance at adinner-party of little ladies and gentlemen. They were told that thechief dish of the entertainment was one which they all particularlyliked, and their curiosity, naturally, was greatly excited. The tablewas cleared, the carving-knife was sharpened in a most demonstrativemanner, and half a dozen pairs of very wide-open little eyes were fixedupon the door through which the waitress entered, bearing aloft anenormous platter, upon which nothing was visible but a cover of equallyenormous size--both of them borrowed, by-the-way, for the importantoccasion. When the cover was raised, with all ceremony, Punch wasdiscovered, in a highly nervous state, and apparently as much delightedand amused at the situation as was anybody else. The guests, with onevoice, declared that he was "sweet enough to eat. " Punch died very suddenly; poisoned, it is supposed, by somebody whom henever injured. He never injured a living soul! And when Mary Cook dug ahole, by the side of Whiskie's grave, one raw afternoon, and put Punchinto it, his master is not ashamed to confess that he shut himself up inhis room, threw himself onto the bed, and cried as he has not criedsince they took his mother away from him. Mop was the third of the quartet of dogs, and he came into the householdlike the Quality of Mercy. A night or two after the death of Punch, hismaster chanced to be dining with the Coverleys, in Brooklyn. Mr. Coverley, noticing the trappings and the suits of woe which his friendwore in his face, naturally asked the cause. He had in his stable aDandie as fine as Punch, whom he had not seen, or thought of, for amonth. Would the bereaved one like to see him? The mourner would like tolook at any dog who looked like the companion who had been taken fromhim; and a call, through a speaking-tube, brought into the room, headover heels, with all the wild impetuosity of his race, Punchpersonified, his ghost embodied, his twin brother. The same long, lithebody, the same short legs (the fore legs shaped like a capital S), thesame short tail, the same hair dragging the ground, the same beautifulhead, the same wistful, expressive eye, the same cool, insinuating nose. The new-comer raced around the table, passing his owner unnoticed, andnot a word was spoken. Then this Dandie cut a sort of doublepigeon-wing, gave a short bark, put his crooked, dirty little feet onthe stranger's knees, insinuated his cool and expressive nose into anunresisting hand, and wagged his stump of a tail with all his lovingmight. It was the longed-for touch of a vanished paw, the lick of atongue that was still. He was unkempt, uncombed, uncared for, but he wasanother Punch, and he knew a friend when he saw one. "If that were mydog he would not live forgotten in a stable: he would take the place inthe society to which his birth and his evident breeding entitle him, "was the friend's remark, and Mop regretfully went back to his stall. [Illustration: MOP AND HIS MASTER] The next morning, early, he came into the Thirty-fourth Street study, combed, kempt, shining, cared for to a superlative degree; with a notein his mouth signifying that his name was Mop and that he was The Boy's. He was The Boy's, and The Boy was his, so long as he lived, ten happyyears for both of them. Without Punch's phenomenal intelligence, Mop had many of Punch's ways, and all of Punch's trust and affection; and, like Punch, he was never sosuperlatively happy as when he was roughly mauled and pulled about byhis tail. When by chance he was shut out in the back-yard, he knocked, with his tail, on the door; he squirmed his way into the heart of MaryCook in the first ten minutes, and in half an hour he was on terms ofthe most affectionate friendship with Punch's cat. Mop had absolutely no sense of fear or of animal proportions. As acatter he was never equalled; a Yale-man, by virtue of an honorarydegree, he tackled everything he ever met in the feline way--with theexception of the Princeton Tiger--and he has been known to attack dogsseven times as big as himself. He learned nothing by experience: henever knew when he was thrashed. The butcher's dog at Onteora whipped, and bit, and chewed him into semi-helpless unconsciousness three times aweek for four months, one summer; and yet Mop, half paralyzed, bandaged, soaked in Pond's Extract, unable to hold up his head to respond to thegreetings of his own family, speechless for hours, was up and about andready for another fray and another chewing, the moment the butcher'sdog, unseen, unscented by the rest of the household, appeared over thebrow of the hill. The only creature by whom Mop was ever really overcome was ablack-and-white, common, every-day, garden skunk. He treed thisunexpected visitor on the wood-pile one famous moonlight night inOnteora. And he acknowledged his defeat at once, and like a man. Herealized fully his own unsavory condition. He retired to a far corner ofthe small estate, and for a week, prompted only by his own instinct, hekept to the leeward of Onteora society. He went out of Onteora, that summer, in a blaze of pugnacious glory. Itwas the last day of the season; many households were being broken up, and four or five families were leaving the colony together. All wasconfusion and hurry at the little railway station at Tannersville. Scores of trunks were being checked, scores of packages were beinglabelled for expressage, every hand held a bag, or a bundle, or both;and Mop, a semi-invalid, his fore paw and his ear in slings, the resultof recent encounters with the butcher's dog, was carried, for safety'ssake, and for the sake of his own comfort, in a basket, which served asan ambulance, and was carefully placed in the lap of the cook. As thetrain finally started, already ten minutes late, the cook, to give herhero a last look at the Hill-of-the-Sky, opened the basket, and thewindow, that he might wag a farewell tail. When lo! the butcher's dogappeared upon the scene, and, in an instant, Mop was out of the windowand under the car-wheels, in the grip of the butcher's dog. Intense wasthe excitement. The engine was stopped, and brakemen, and firemen, andconductors, and passengers, and on-lookers, and other dogs, wereshouting and barking and trying to separate the combatants. At the endof a second ten minutes Mop--minus a piece of the other ear--was back inhis ambulance: conquered, but happy. He never saw the butcher's dog orOnteora again. To go back a little. Mop was the first person who was told of hismaster's engagement, and he was the first to greet the wife when shecame home, a bride, to his own house. He had been made to understand, from the beginning, that she did not care for dogs--in general. And heset himself out to please, and to overcome the unspoken antagonism. Hehad a delicate part to play, and he played it with a delicacy and a tactwhich rarely have been equalled. He did not assert himself; he kepthimself in the background; he said little; his approaches at first wereslight and almost imperceptible, but he was always ready to do, or tohelp, in an unaggressive way. He followed her about the house, up-stairsand down-stairs, and he looked and waited. Then he began to sit on thetrain of her gown; to stand as close to her as was fit and proper; oncein a while to jump upon the sofa beside her, or into the easy-chairbehind her, winking at his master, from time to time, in his quiet way. And at last he was successful. One dreary winter, when he sufferedterribly from inflammatory rheumatism, he found his mistress making abed for him by the kitchen fire, getting up in the middle of the nightto go down to look after him, when he uttered, in pain, the cries hecould not help. And when a bottle of very rare old brandy, kept for someextraordinary occasion of festivity, was missing, the master wasinformed that it had been used in rubbing Mop! Mop's early personal history was never known. Told once that he was thepurest Dandie in America, and asked his pedigree, his master was movedto look into the matter of his family tree. It seems that a certainsea-captain was commissioned to bring back to this country the bestDandie to be had in all Scotland. He sent his quartermaster to find him, and the quartermaster found Mop under a private carriage, in ArgyleStreet, Glasgow, and brought him on board. That is Mop's pedigree. Mop died of old age and of a complication of diseases, in the spring of1892. He lost his hair, he lost his teeth, he lost everything but hisindomitable spirit; and when almost on the brink of the grave, he stoodin the back-yard--literally, on the brink of his own grave--for eighthours in a March snow-storm, motionless, and watching a great black caton the fence, whom he hypnotized, and who finally came down to bekilled. The cat weighed more than Mop did, and was very gamy. And theencounter nearly cost a lawsuit. This was Mop's last public appearance. He retired to his bed before thekitchen range, and gradually and slowly he faded away: amiable, unrepining, devoted to the end. A consultation of doctors showed thathis case was hopeless, and Mop was condemned to be carried off to bekilled humanely by the society founded by Mr. Bergh, where withoutcruelty they end the sufferings of animals. Mop had not left his couchfor weeks. His master spoke to him about it, with tears in his eyes, onenight. He said: "To-morrow must end it, old friend. 'Tis for your sakeand your relief. It almost breaks my heart, old friend. But there isanother and a better world--even for dogs, old friend. And for oldacquaintance' sake, and for old friendship's sake, I must have you senton ahead of me, old friend. " The next morning, when he came down to breakfast, there by the emptychair sat Mop. How he got himself up the stairs nobody knows. But therehe was, and the society which a good man founded saw not Mop that day. The end came soon afterwards. And Mop has gone on to join Whiskie andPunch in their waiting for The Boy. The family went abroad for a year's stay, when Mop died, and they rentedthe house to good people and good tenants, who have never been forgivenfor one particular act. They buried a dog of their own in the familyplot in the back-yard, and under the ailantus-tree which shades thegraves of the cats and the dogs; and The Boy feels that they haveprofaned the spot! It seemed to his master, after the passing of Mop, that the master'searthly account with dogs was closed. The pain of parting was too greatto be endured. But another Dandie came to him, one Christmas morning, tofill the aching void; and for a time again his life is not a doglessone. [Illustration: ROY AND HIS MASTER] The present ruler of the household has a pedigree much longer and muchstraighter than his own front legs. Although he comes from adistinguished line of prize-winning thoroughbreds, he never will bepermitted to compete for a medal on his own behalf. The Dog Showshould be suppressed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toDogs. It has ruined the dispositions and broken the hearts of very manyof the best friends humanity ever had. And the man who would send hisdog to the Dog Show, would send his wife to a Wife Show, and permit hisbaby to be exhibited, in public, for a blue ribbon or a certificate--atan admission-fee of fifty cents a head! Mop's successor answers to the name of Roy--when he answers to anythingat all. He is young, very wilful, and a little hard of hearing, of whichlatter affliction he makes the most. He always understands when he isinvited to go out. He is stone-deaf, invariably, when he is told to comeback. But he is full of affection, and he has a keen sense of humor. Inthe face he looks like Thomas Carlyle, and Professor John Weir declaresthat his body is all out of drawing! At times his devotion to his mistress is beautiful and touching. It isanother case of "Mary and the Lamb, you know. " If his mistress is notvisible, he waits patiently about; and he is sure to go wherever shegoes. It makes the children of the neighborhood laugh and play. But itis severe upon the master, who does most of the training, while themistress gets most of the devotion. That is the way with lambs, and withdogs, and with some folks! Roy is quite as much of a fighter as was any one of the other dogs; buthe is a little more discriminating in his likes and his dislikes. Hefights all the dogs in Tannersville; he fights the Drislers' Gyp almostevery time he meets him; he fights the Beckwiths' Blennie only wheneither one of them trespasses on the domestic porch of the other(Blennie, who is very pretty, looks like old portraits of Mrs. Browning, with the curls hanging on each side of the face); and Roy never fightsLaddie Pruyn nor Jack Ropes at all. Jack Ropes is the hero whom heworships, the beau ideal to him of everything a dog should be. Hefollows Jack in all respects; and he pays Jack the sincere flattery ofimitation. Jack, an Irish setter, is a thorough gentleman in form, inaction, and in thought. Some years Roy's senior, he submits patiently tothe playful capers of the younger dog; and he even accepts little nipsat his legs or his ears. It is pleasant to watch the two friends duringan afternoon walk. Whatever Jack does, that does Roy; and Jack knows it, and he gives Roy hard things to do. He leads Roy to the summit of highrocks, and then he jumps down, realizing that Roy is too small to takethe leap. But he always waits until Roy, yelping with mortification, comes back by the way they both went. He wades through puddles up to hisown knees, but over Roy's head; and then he trots cheerfully away, farin advance, while Roy has to stop long enough to shake himself dry. But it was Roy's turn once! He traversed a long and not very cleandrain, which was just large enough to give free passage to his own smallbody; and Jack went rushing after. Jack got through; but he was aspectacle to behold. And there are creditable eye-witnesses who areready to testify that Roy took Jack home, and sat on the steps, andlaughed, while Jack was being washed. [Illustration: ROY] Each laughed on the wrong side of his mouth, however--Jack from agony, and Roy from sympathy--when Jack, a little later, had his unfortunateadventure with the loose-quilled, fretful, Onteora porcupine. It nearlycost Jack his life and his reason; and for some time he was a helpless, suffering invalid. Doctors were called in, chloroform was administered, and many delicate surgical operations were performed before Jack was onhis feet again; and for the while each tail drooped. Happily for Roy, hedid not go to the top of the Hill-of-the-Sky that unlucky day, and so heescaped the porcupine. But Roy does not care much for porcupines, anyway, and he never did. Other dogs are porcupiney enough for him! Roy's association with Jack Ropes is a liberal education to him in moreways than one. Jack is so big and so strong and so brave, and so gentlewithal, and so refined in manners and intellectual in mind, that Roy, even if he would, could not resist the healthful influence. Jack neverquarrels except when Roy quarrels; and whether Roy is in the right or inthe wrong, the aggressor or the attacked (and generally he begins it), Jack invariably interferes on Roy's behalf, in a good-natured, big-brother, what-a-bother sort of way that will not permit Roy to bethe under dog in any fight. Part of Roy's dislike of Blennie--Blennie isshort for Blenheim--consists in the fact that while Blennie is niceenough in his way, it is not Roy's way. Blennie likes to sit on laps, tobark out of windows--at a safe distance. He wears a little sleigh-bellon his collar. Under no circumstances does he play follow-my-leader, asJack does. He does not try to do stunts; and, above all, he does notcare to go in swimming. The greatest event, perhaps, in Roy's young life was his first swim. Hedid not know he could swim. He did not know what it was to swim. He hadnever seen a sheet of water larger than a road-side puddle or than thestationary wash-tubs of his own laundry at home. He would have nothingto do with the Pond, at first, except for drinking purposes; and hewould not enter the water until Jack went in, and then nothing wouldinduce him to come out of the water--until Jack was tired. His surpriseand his pride at being able to take care of himself in an entirelyunknown and unexplored element were very great. But--there is always a_But_ in Roy's case--but when he swam ashore the trouble began. Jack, in a truly Chesterfieldian manner, dried himself in the long grass onthe banks. Roy dried _him_self in the deep yellow dust of the road--amedium which was quicker and more effective, no doubt, but not sopleasant for those about him; for he was so enthusiastic over hisperformance that he jumped upon everybody's knickerbockers, or upon theskirts of everybody's gown, for the sake of a lick at somebody's handand a pat of appreciation and applause. Another startling and never-to-be-forgotten experience of Roy's was hisintroduction to the partridge. He met the partridge casually oneafternoon in the woods, and he paid no particular attention to it. Helooked upon it as a plain barn-yard chicken a little out of place; butwhen the partridge whirled and whizzed and boomed itself into the air, Roy put all his feet together, and jumped, like a bucking horse, at thelowest estimate four times as high as his own head. He thought it was aporcupine! He had heard a great deal about porcupines, although he hadnever seen one; and he fancied that that was the way porcupines alwayswent off! Roy likes and picks blackberries--the green as well as the ripe; and hedoes not mind having his portrait painted. Mr. Beckwith considers Royone of the best models he ever had. Roy does not have to be posed; heposes himself, willingly and patiently, so long as he can pose himselfvery close to his master; and he always places his front legs, which heknows to be his strong point, in the immediate foreground. He tries veryhard to look pleasant, as if he saw a chipmunk at the foot of a tree, oras if he thought Mr. Beckwith was squeezing little worms of white paintout of little tubes just for his amusement. And if he really does see achipmunk on a stump, he rushes off to bark at the chipmunk; and then hecomes back and resumes his original position, and waits for Mr. Beckwithto go on painting again. Once in awhile, when he feels that Mr. Beckwithhas made a peculiarly happy remark, or an unusually happy stroke of thebrush, Roy applauds tumultuously and loudly with his tail, against theseat of the bench or the side of the house. Roy has two distinctwags--the perpendicular and the horizontal; and in his many moments ofenthusiasm he never neglects to use that particular wag which is likelyto make the most noise. [Illustration: "HE TRIES VERY HARD TO LOOK PLEASANT"] Roy has many tastes and feelings which are in entire sympathy with thoseof his master. He cannot get out of a hammock unless he falls out; andhe is never so miserable as when Mrs. Butts comes over from the EastkillValley to clean house. Mrs. Butts piles all the sitting-room furnitureon the front piazza, and then she scrubs the sitting-room floor, andneither Roy nor his master, so long as Mrs. Butts has control, canenter the sitting-room for a bone or a book. And they do not like it, although they like Mrs. Butts. Roy has his faults; but his evil, as a rule, is wrought by want ofthought rather than by want of heart. He shows his affection for hisfriends by walking under their feet and getting his own feet stepped on, or by sitting so close to their chairs that they rock on his tail. Hehas been known to hold two persons literally spellbound for minutes, with his tail under the rocker of one chair and both ears under therocker of another one. Roy's greatest faults are barking at horses'heels and running away. This last is very serious, and often it isannoying; but there is always some excuse for it. He generally runs awayto the Williamsons', which is the summer home of his John and his Sarah;and where lodges Miss Flossie Burns, of Tannersville, his summer-girl. He knows that the Williamsons themselves do not want too much of him, nomatter how John and Sarah and Miss Burns may feel on the subject; and heknows, too, that his own family wishes him to stay more at home; but, for all that, he runs away. He slips off at every opportunity. Hepretends that he is only going down to the road to see what time it is, or that he is simply setting out for a blackberry or the afternoon'smail; and when he is brought reluctantly home, he makes believe that hehas forgotten all about it; and he naps on the top step, or in thedoor-way, in the most guileless and natural manner; and then, whennobody is looking, he dashes off, barking at any imaginary ox-cart, inwild, unrestrainable impetuosity, generally in the direction of theWilliamsons' cottage, and bringing up, almost invariably, under theWilliamsons' kitchen stove. He would rather be shut up, in the Williamsons' kitchen, with John andSarah, and with a chance of seeing Flossie through the wire-screeneddoor, than roam in perfect freedom over all his own domain. He will bark at horses' heels until he is brought home, some day, withbroken ribs. Nothing but hard experience teaches Roy. There is no use ofboxing his ears. That only hurts his feelings, and gives him an extracraving for sympathy. He licks the hand that licks him, until everyoneof the five fingers is heartily ashamed of itself. [Illustration: "He is stone-deaf when he is asked to come back"] [Illustration: "He pretends he has forgotten all about it"] [Illustration: "He poses willingly and steadily"] [Illustration: "He waits patiently about"] [Illustration: ROY] Several autograph letters of Roy's, in verse, in blank-verse, and inplain, hard prose, signed by his own mark--a fore paw dipped in anink-bottle and stamped upon the paper--were sold by Mrs. Custer atvarying prices during a fair for the benefit of the Onteora Chapel Fund, in 1896. To one friend he wrote: "My dear Blennie Beckwith, --You are a sneak; and a snip; and a snide; and a snob; and a snoozer; and a snarler; and a snapper; and a skunk. And I hate you; and I loathe you; and I despise you; and I abominate you; and I scorn you; and I repudiate you; and I abhor you; and I dislike you; and I eschew you; and I dash you; and I dare you. "Your affectionate friend, "P. S. --I've licked this spot. "R. H. His Roy [paw print] Hutton. Mark. "Witness: Kate Lynch. " Inspired by Miss Flossie Williamson Burns's bright eyes, he dropped intopoetry in addressing her: "Say I'm barkey; say I'm bad; Say the Thurber pony kicked me; Say I run away--but add-- 'Flossie licked me. ' his "Roy × Hutton. Mark. "Witness: Sarah Johnson. " In honor of "John Ropes, Esquire, " he went to Shakspere: "But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of thy mountain climb, I could a tail unfold, whose lightest wag Would harrow up the roof of thy mouth, draw thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like a couple of safety-matches, start from their spheres; Thy knotted and combined locks to part right straight down the middle of thy back, And each particular brick-red hair to stand on end Full of quills, shot out by a fretful Onteora porcupine. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears that are quite as handsome as is the rest of thy beautiful body. ("'Hamlet, ' altered to suit, by) his "Roy × Hutton. Mark. "Witness: John Johnson. " His latest poetical effort was the result of his affection for aScottish collie, in his neighborhood, and was indited TO LADDIE PRUYN, ESQ. Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot, And the Dogs of Auld Lang Syne? I'll wag a tail o' kindness yet, For the sake of Auld Ladd Pruyn. Witnesses: Marion Lyman, Effie Waddington, Katherine Lyman. [Illustration: Punch. Whiskie. Mop. THE WAITING THREE] While Roy was visiting the Fitches and the Telford children, and littleAgnes Ogden, at Wilton, Conn. , some time afterwards, he dictated a longletter to his master, some portions of which, perhaps, are worthpreserving. After the usual remarks upon the weather and the generalhealth of the family, he touched upon serious, personal matters whichhad evidently caused him some mental and physical uneasiness. And heexplained that while he was willing to confess that he _did_ chase thewhite cat into a tree, and keep her away from her kittens for a coupleof hours, he _did not_ kill the little chicken. The little chicken, stepped upon by its own mother, was dead, quite dead, when he picked itup, and brought it to the house. And he made Dick Fitch, who was aneye-witness to the whole transaction, add a post-script testifying thatthe statement was true. John says the letter sounds exactly like Roy! Roy's is a complex character. There is little medium about Roy. He isvery good when he is good, and he is very horrid indeed when he is bad. He is a strange admixture of absolute devotion and of utter inconstancy. Nothing will entice him away from John on one day, neither threats norpersuasion. The next day he will cut John dead in the road, with no signof recognition. He sees John, and he goes slowly and deliberately out ofhis way to pass John by, without a look or a sniff. He comes up-stairsevery morning when his master's shaving-water is produced. He watchesintently the entire course of his master's toilet; he follows hismaster, step by step, from bed to bureau, from closet to chair; he liesacross his master's feet; he minds no sprinkling from his master'ssponge, so anxious is he that his master shall not slip away, and go tohis breakfast without him. And then, before his master is ready tostart, Roy goes off to breakfast, alone--at the Williamsons'! He willtorment his master sometimes for hours to be taken out to walk; he willinterrupt his master's work, disturb his master's afternoon nap, andrefuse all invitations to run away for a walk on his own account. Andthe moment he and his master have started, he will join the firstabsolute stranger he meets, and walk off with that stranger in theopposite direction, and in the most confidential manner possible! There are days when he will do everything he should do, everything he istold to do, everything he is wanted to do. There are days and daystogether when he does nothing that is right, when he is disobedient, disrespectful, disobliging, disagreeable, even disreputable. And allthis on purpose! It is hard to know what to do with Roy: how to treat him; how to bringhim up. He may improve as he grows older. Perhaps to his unfortunateinfirmity may be ascribed his uncertainty and his variability of temperand disposition. It is possible that he cannot hear even when he wantsto hear. It is not impossible that he is making-believe all the time. One great, good thing can be said for Roy: he is never really cross; henever snaps; he never snarls; he never bites his human friends, nomatter how great the provocation may be. Roy is a canine enigma, themost eccentric of characters. His family cannot determine whether he isa gump or a genius. But they know he is nice; and they like him! Long may Roy be spared to wag his earthly tail, and to bay deep-mouthedwelcome to his own particular people as they draw near home. How thethree dogs who have gone on ahead agree now with each other, and howthey will agree with Roy, no man can say. They did not agree with verymany dogs in this world. But that they are waiting together, all threeof them, for Roy and for The Boy, and in perfect harmony, The Boy isabsolutely sure. [Illustration: MOP] +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Note | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation (cobblestones/cobble-stones, | | dogless/dog-less) has been retained, along with the author's | | deliberate mis-spellings. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+