“Oh, do! you know what I mean,” she said impatiently. “This stuff.” She
produced suddenly from behind her a bottle with a Greek label so long
as to run two or three times spirally around it from top to bottom. “He
says it isn't a dye: it's a vegetable preparation, for invigorating”--
“Who says?” I asked despairingly.
“Why, Mr. Parker, of course!” said Mrs. Brown severely, with the air of
having repeated the name a great many times,--“the old gentleman in the
room above. The simple question I want to ask,” she continued with the
calm manner of one who has just convicted another of gross ambiguity of
language, “is only this: If some of this stuff were put in a saucer, and
left carelessly on the table, and a child, or a baby, or a cat, or any
young animal, should come in at the window, and drink it up,--a whole
saucer full,--because it had a sweet taste, would it be likely to hurt
them?”
I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping peacefully in the corner, and
a very grateful one at Mrs. Brown, and said I didn't think it would.
“Because,” said Mrs. Brown loftily as she opened the door, “I thought,
if it was poisonous, remedies might be used in time. Because,” she added
suddenly, abandoning her lofty manner, and wildly rushing to the corner
with a frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, “because, if any nasty
stuff should turn its booful hair a horrid green, or a naughty pink, it
would break its own muzzer's heart, it would!”
But, before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the inefficiency of hair-dye as
an internal application, she had darted from the room.
That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, Baby and I decamped from
Mrs. Brown's. Distrusting the too emotional nature of that noble animal,
the horse, I had recourse to a handcart, drawn by a stout Irishman, to
convey my charge to the ferry. Even then, Baby refused to go, unless I
walked by the cart, and at times rode in it.
“I wish,” said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by the door, wrapped in an
immense shawl, and saw us depart, “I wish it looked less solemn,--less
like a pauper's funeral.”
I must admit, that, as I walked by the cart that night, I felt very much
as if I were accompanying the remains of some humble friend to his last
resting-place; and that, when I was obliged to ride in it, I never could
entirely convince myself that I was not helplessly overcome by liquor,
or the victim of an accident, en route to the hospital. But at last we
reached the ferry. On the boat, I think no one discovered Baby, except a
drunken man, who approached me to ask for a light for his cigar, but who
suddenly dropped it, and fled in dismay to the gentlemen's cabin, where
his incoherent ravings were luckily taken for the earlier indications of
delirium tremens.
It was nearly midnight when I reached my little cottage on the outskirts
of Oakland; and it was with a feeling of relief and security that I
entered, locked the door, and turned him loose in the hall, satisfied
that henceforward his depredations would be limited to my own property.
He was very quiet that night; and after he had tried to mount the
hatrack, under the mistaken impression that it was intended for his own
gymnastic exercise, and knocked all the hats off, he went peaceably to
sleep on the rug.
In a week, with the exercise afforded him by the run of a large,
carefully-boarded enclosure, he recovered his health, strength, spirits,
and much of his former beauty. His presence was unknown to my neighbors,
although it was noticeable that horses invariably “shied” in passing
to the windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman had great
difficulty in the delivery of their wares in the morning, and indulged
in unseemly and unnecessary profanity in so doing.
At the end of the week, I determined to invite a few friends to see the
Baby, and to that purpose wrote a number of formal invitations. After
descanting, at some length, on the great expense and danger attending
his capture and training, I offered a programme of the performance, of
the “Infant Phenomenon of Sierran Solitudes,” drawn up into the highest
professional profusion of alliteration and capital letters. A few
extracts will give the reader some idea of his educational progress:--
1. He will, rolled up in a Round Ball, roll down the Wood-Shed Rapidly,
illustrating His manner of Escaping from His Enemy in His Native Wilds.
2. He will Ascend the Well-Pole, and remove from the Very Top a Hat, and
as much of the Crown and Brim thereof, as May be Permitted.
3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the Conduct of the Big
Bear, The Middle-Sized Bear, and The Little Bear of the Popular Nursery
Legend.
4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner of striking
Dismay and Terror in the Breasts of Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses.
The morning of the exhibition came; but an hour before the performance
the wretched Baby was missing. The Chinese cook could not indicate his
whereabouts. I searched the premises thoroughly; and then, in despair,
took my hat, and hurried out into the narrow lane that led toward the
open fields and the woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track of
Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour's fruitless search, to find
my guests already assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted my
disappointment, my probable loss, and begged their assistance.
“Why,” said a Spanish friend, who prided himself on his accurate
knowledge of English, to Barker, who seemed to be trying vainly to rise
from his reclining position on the veranda, “why do you not disengage
yourself from the veranda of our friend? And why, in the name of Heaven,
do you attach to yourself so much of this thing, and make to yourself
such unnecessary contortion? Ah,” he continued, suddenly withdrawing one
of his own feet from the veranda with an evident effort, “I am myself
attached! Surely it is something here!”
It evidently was. My guests were all rising with difficulty. The floor
of the veranda was covered with some glutinous substance. It was--sirup!
I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn. The keg of “golden sirup,”
purchased only the day before, lay empty upon the floor. There were
sticky tracks all over the enclosure, but still no Baby.
“There's something moving the ground over there by that pile of dirt,”
said Barker.
He was right. The earth was shaking in one corner of the enclosure like
an earthquake. I approached cautiously. I saw, what I had not before
noticed, that the ground was thrown up; and there, in the middle of an
immense grave-like cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, still digging, and
slowly but surely sinking from sight in a mass of dust and clay.
What were his intentions? Whether he was stung by remorse, and wished to
hide himself from my reproachful eyes, or whether he was simply trying
to dry his sirup-besmeared coat, I never shall know; for that day, alas!
was his last with me.
He was pumped upon for two hours, at the end of which time he still
yielded a thin treacle. He was then taken, and carefully inwrapped in
blankets, and locked up in the store-room. The next morning he was
gone! The lower portion of the window sash and pane were gone too.
His successful experiments on the fragile texture of glass at the
confectioner's, on the first day of his entrance to civilization, had
not been lost upon him. His first essay at combining cause and effect
ended in his escape.
Where he went, where he hid, who captured him, if he did not succeed in
reaching the foothills beyond Oakland, even the offer of a large reward,
backed by the efforts of an intelligent police, could not discover. I
never saw him again from that day until--
Did I see him? I was in a horse-car on Sixth Avenue, a few days ago,
when the horses suddenly became unmanageable, and left the track for the
sidewalk, amid the oaths and execrations of the driver. Immediately in
front of the car a crowd had gathered around two performing bears and a
showman. One of the animals, thin, emaciated, and the mere wreck of his
native strength, attracted my attention. I endeavored to attract his. He
turned a pair of bleared, sightless eyes in my direction; but there was
no sign of recognition. I leaned from the car-window, and called softly,
“Baby!” But he did not heed. I closed the window. The car was just
moving on, when he suddenly turned, and, either by accident or design,
thrust a callous paw through the glass.
“It's worth a dollar and half to put in a new pane,” said the conductor,
“if folks will play with bears!”