When I was a child of four, long, long ago, as it seems to me, some
friend gave my father a setter dog. And my father named him “Tim,” for
the giver’s name was Timothy.
Tim and our old gardener, Sandy’s father, whose name was Uncle Robert,
were about the only friends of my early childhood. I remember how in
the fall of every year, when the chestnut burrs used to get big and the
pippins began to ripen, Uncle Robert used to dig up all the potatoes
and make them into a huge mound at the end of our garden. Then he would
rake together in heaps the dead and falling leaves, and use them for
a warm covering for the potato mound in order to protect the potatoes
from the snow and frost, for he kept them there all winter, and only
brought them up to the kitchen as the cook needed them. Uncle Robert’s
mountain of potatoes always impressed me as being perfectly wonderful.
Indeed most everything that Uncle Robert did, came pretty near to the
marvelous. Upon the first fall of snow, I used to get a staff, and
scale that mountain, and pose on the summit “like stout Cortez--silent,
upon a peak in Darien.” I have crossed the Rockies and the Alps since,
but not one of them has seemed quite so high or inspiring. Sometimes I
think that when a child loses that appreciative sense of the marvelous,
the joy of life dies. Mounds become mere mounds, and mountains only
mountains.
But the real fun at potato time, was after Uncle Robert had used up as
many leaves as he could, and set the rest on fire. No one could ever
light a fire quite as well as Uncle Robert. No matter how the wind
blew, no matter how much the leaves jumped up in his old face, Uncle
Robert caught them and turned them into shoots of flame. That was
toward the end of the chilly days when the clouds used to grow black
even before the chickens went to roost. And now came the real treat.
Uncle Robert would give me two potatoes from within the mound. Then he
would poke a hole in the hot, red ashes; I would drop them in; and he
would smoulder them with fresh leaves. Hereupon, Uncle Robert would
leave to feed the turkeys.
Meanwhile Tim, my setter, sat upon his haunches, watching us, his
tongue hanging out, for the fire made him hot. I used to make an extra
fuss about all this potato roasting in order that Tim might enjoy it
the more. And as soon as I had dropped the potatoes in the ashes, I
would go and lie lengthwise on Tim’s back, and fling my arms about
his neck and hug him tight. I could go and see the turkeys driven to
roost any evening, but this evening was peculiarly Tim’s and mine. I
knew that Tim loved me, but not half so much as I loved Tim. I bumped
his head, which was my most intimate term of affection with him. We
two alone would sit there until the potatoes were cooked, watching
the flames change into smoke, and the grey smoke rise and join the
greyness of the winter sky. I was happy, so happy, dreaming with my
arms about Tim, both of us gazing into the burning leaves, and, oh,
their delicious odor, we both relished it, and I, full of affection
and boyish glory, thinking strange, innocent thoughts. What would I
not give to be that little brown-headed boy again, unfettered with the
knowledge of evil?
When the potatoes were cooked to a mealy white, Uncle Robert came back
from the turkey-house and pulled them out with his dextrous rake; and
we three proceeded to the kitchen, where we found Aunt Maria, Sandy’s
mother, sitting by the old brick oven. She gave us salt, and we ate the
potatoes. Tim had some. No fairies ever dined like that, I was sure.
Then my mother came out on the back veranda, and called:
“My son, my son, come into the house!”
“Doan’t you heah Mistus callin’?” demanded Uncle Robert.
“Yes,” I said, “but I didn’t want to go.”