IN WHICH DAN GETS WILD NOTIONS INTO HIS HEAD, AND MAKES SOME VERY
BOYISH EXPERIMENTS.
If every farthing of the allowance of pocket-money which Joshua and
Dan received from their respective parents had been carefully saved
up, it would not have amounted to a very large sum in the course of
the year. Insignificant, however, as was the allowance, it sufficed
for their small wants, and was made to yield good interest in the way
of social enjoyment. The lads did not keep separate accounts. What
was Joshua's was Dan's, and what was Dan's was Joshua's. As there were
no secret clasps in their minds concealing something, which the other
was not to share and enjoy, so there was no secret clasp in their
money-box which debarred either from spending that which, strictly
speaking, belonged to his friend. Dan was the treasurer; the treasury
was the money-box which was to have been Golden Cloud's coffin. Dan's
allowance was two pence a week, which was often in arrears in
consequence of his father being too fond of public-houses; Joshua's
allowance was four pence a week, which he received very regularly. But
each of their allowances was supplemented by contributions from
independent sources. The motives which prompted these contributions
were of a very different nature; as the following will explain:--
"Something more for the money-box, Dan," said Joshua, producing a
four-penny piece, and dropping it into the box.
"From the same party, Jo?" asked Dan.
"From the same jolly old party, Dan. From the Old Sailor."
"Is he nice?"
"The Old Sailor? You should see him, that's all."
"You have been down to the waterside again, then?"
"Yes. Tuck-tuck-joey!" This latter to the linnet, who came out to have
a peep at Joshua, and who, directly it heard the greeting, responded
with the sweetest peal of music that mortal ever listened to. When the
linnet had finished its song the obtrusive and greedy blackbird,
determined not to be outdone, and quite ignoring the fact that it had
had a very good supper, ordered Polly to put the kettle on, in its
most piercing notes.
"Did you go on the river, Jo?" asked Dan.
"Yes. In a boat. Rowing. The Old Sailor says I am getting along
famously."
"I _should_ like to see the Old Sailor."
"I wish you could; but he is such a strange old fellow! He doesn't
care for the land. When I tell mother what I am making up my mind to
be--what I shall have _made_ up mind then to be--I will coax him to
come to our house. I want him to talk to mother about the sea, for she
is sure to cry and fret, and although the Old Sailor doesn't think
that women are as good as men, he thinks mothers are better."
Dan laughed a pleasant little laugh.
"That is queer," he said.
"He knows all about you, and he asks me every day, 'How is Dan?'"
"I am glad of that--very glad."
"So am I. I have told him all about the birds, and how, they love you.
You would never guess what he said to-day about you."
"Something very bad, I dare say," said Dan, knowing very well, all the
time, that it was something good, or Joshua would not tell him.
"Something _very_ bad. He said, 'He must be a fine little
chap'--meaning you, Dan--'or the birds wouldn't love him.'"
"Has he been all over the world, Jo?"
"All over the world; and O Dan, he has seen _such_ places!"
"I tell you what we will do," said Dan. "To-morrow you shall buy a
couple of young bullfinches, and you shall find out some tune the Old
Sailor is fond of; and I will teach the bullfinches to whistle it.
Then you shall give the birds to the Old Sailor, and say they are a
present from me and you."
"That will be prime! He will be so pleased!"
"Have you ever heard him sing, Jo?"
"Yes," answered Joshua, laughing; "I have heard him sing,--
'Which is the properest day to drink,
Saturday, Sunday, Monday?
Each is the properest day, I think--
Why should I name but one day?
Tell me but yours, I'll mention my day,
Let us but fix on some day--
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.'"
"I don't think that would do," said Dan, echoing Joshua's laugh.
"Here's another," said Joshua, and he played a prelude to "Poor Tom
Bowling," and sang the first verse,--
'Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broached him too.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft,
Faithful below Tom did his duty,
But now he's gone aloft,
But now he's gone aloft.'"
Joshua sang the words with much tender feeling, but Dan shook his
head.
"The birds would never be able to get the spirit of the song
into them," he said, "and the tune is nothing without that. Never
mind--we'll teach them something, and then the Old Sailor shall have
them."
"And I shall tell him they are a present from you alone."
"No," said Dan energetically; "that would spoil it all. They are from
you and me together. Can't you guess the reason why?"
"I believe I can," replied Joshua, after a little consideration. "The
Old Sailor likes me, and you want him to like you because of me, not
because of yourself alone; you want him to like me more because of
you--as I am sure he will when he knows you."
"That's it. I want him to know that we love each other, and that we
shall always love each other, whether we are together or separated. I
want everybody who likes you, Jo, to like me."
Joshua laid his hand upon Dan's, which rested on the table, and Dan
placed his other hand upon Joshua's playfully. Their hands were
growing to be very unlike. Dan's hand, as it grew, became more
delicate, while Joshua's grew stronger and more muscular. Dan laughed
another pleasant laugh as he remarked the difference between them.
"That is a proper kind of hand for a hero," he said. And then, in a
more serious voice, "Joshua, do you know I think we can see each
other's thoughts." And so, indeed, it appeared as if they could.
The next day the bullfinches were bought, and Dan began to train them.
They were a pair of very young birds, not a dozen days old, and the
air Dan fixed upon to teach them first was "Rule, Britannia."
So much for Joshua's supplemental contributions to the general fund.
Now for Dan's.
"Another sixpence in a piece of paper, Jo!"
"That makes eighteen pence this month, Dan. Poor Susan!"
"Poor Susan!" echoed Dan.
Susan was very much to be pitied. Looking upon herself as her
brother's destroyer, she endeavored, by offerings of sixpences as
often as she could afford them, to atone for the crime--for so she now
regarded it--by which she had made him a helpless cripple. These
sixpences were not given openly; they were laid, as it were, upon the
sacrificial altar in secret. Sometimes the altar was one of Ellen's
shoes, and Ellen, when she dressed herself, would feel something
sticking in her heel, and discover it to be a sixpence tightly screwed
up in a piece of paper, with the words, "For Dan; from Susan," written
on it; sometimes the altar was one of Dan's pocket-handkerchiefs,
and the sixpence was tied up in a knot; sometimes it was a bag of
bird-seed; sometimes Dan's cap. She was so imbued with a sense of
guilt, that she trembled when she met Dan's eye. He was as kind and
gentle to her, when he had the opportunity, as he was to all around
him; and divining her secret remorse, he tried by every means in his
power to lessen it. But the feeling, that, if Dan died, she was a
murderess, was too deeply implanted in her to be ever removed. She
lived in constant fear. She was afraid of the dark, and could not
sleep without a rush-light near her bedside. Often in the night, on
occasions when Dan was weaker than usual, she would creep down stairs,
and listen at his bedroom-door to catch the sound of his breathing. If
she did not hear it at first, the ghostly echo of the old terrible
cry, "Ah-h-h-h! who killed her little brother? Ah-h-h-h!" filled the
staircase and the passage with dreadful shadows; shadows that seemed
to thicken and gather about her as if possessed with a desire to
stifle her--and she would press her hands tightly upon her eyes so
that she should not see them. Then perhaps she would open Dan's door
quietly, and hearing him breathe, ever so softly, would creep up
stairs again, a little more composed; always closing her door quickly,
to prevent the shadows on the stairs from coming into her room.
The supplemental contributions from Susan and the Old Sailor were very
acceptable to Dan and Joshua, who were both fond of reading. What was
not spent in birds' food was spent in books. They subscribed to two
magazines, the "Penny Magazine" and the "Mirror," which came out
weekly; the subscription was a serious one for them, and made a great
hole in their pocket-money: it swallowed up three pence per week. The
addition of a new book to their modest library was one of the proudest
events in their quiet lives. "New" books is not a strictly correct
phrase, for the collection consisted of second-hand volumes, picked up
almost at random at old-book stalls. Although their library was a
small one, not numbering in its palmiest days more than fifty volumes,
it was wonderfully miscellaneous. Now it was a book of travels that
Joshua bought; now a book of poems; now an odd volume of a magazine;
now a book on natural history; now a speculative book which neither of
the boys could understand--not at all a weak reason in favor of its
being purchased. Over these books the boys would pore night after
night, and extract such marrow from them as best suited their humor.
The conversations which arose out of their readings were worth
listening to; Dan's observations, especially, were very quaint and
original, and gave evidence, not only of good taste, but of the
possession of reflective powers of a high order.
An old book on dreams which Joshua bought for a song, as the saying
is, proved especially attractive to Dan. The proper title of the book
was the "Philosophy of Dreams," an ambitious sub-title--the "Triumph
of Mind over Matter"--being affixed. Dan read and re-read this book
with avidity. In it the writer contended that a person could so
command and control his mental forces, as to train himself to dream of
events which were actually taking place at a distance from him, at the
precise moment they occurred. Space, said the author, was of the
smallest consequence. There was one thing, however, that was
absolutely necessary--that a perfect sympathy should exist between the
dreamer and the person or persons of whom he was dreaming. It was a
wildly-speculative book taken at its best, and contained much
irrelevant and ridiculous matter; but it was just the kind of book to
attract such a lad as Dan, and it set him thinking. "Perfect sympathy!
Such a sympathy," he thought, "as exists between me and Jo;" and he
proceeded to read with greater eagerness. The author, in support of
his theory, dragged in nearly all the sciences; and drew largely upon
that of phrenology. He explained where certain organs lay, such as
wonder, veneration, benevolence, destructiveness, and proceeded
somewhat in the following fashion: Say that a person is sleeping, and
that he is not disturbed by any special powerful emotion, arising
probably from strong anxiety connected with his worldly circumstances.
His mind must be at rest, and his sleep be calm and peaceful. Under
these circumstances, if a certain organ, say the organ of veneration,
be gently pressed, the sleeper will presently dream a dream, in which
the sentiment of veneration will be the quality most prominently
brought into play. And so with wonder, and benevolence, and
combativeness, and other qualities. Having stated this very
distinctly, the writer proceeded, as if the mere statement were
sufficient proof of its incontestability: say that between the sleeper
and the operator a strong and earnest sympathy existed; the operator,
selecting in his mind some person with whom they are both acquainted,
brings his power of will to bear upon the sleeper. (Here the writer
interpolated that the experiment would fail if the organs of
concentrativeness and firmness were not more than ordinarily large in
the operator.) With his mind firmly fixed upon the one object, he
wills that the sleeper shall dream of their mutual acquaintance; and
as he wills it, with all the intensity he can exercise, he gently
manipulates the sleeper's organ of tune--which, by the way, the author
stated he believed was the only one of the purely intellectual
faculties which could be pressed into service. The sleeper will then
dream of the selected person, and his sense of melody and the harmony
of sound will be gratified. Then, in a decidedly vague manner, as if
he had got himself in a tangle from which he did not know how to
extricate himself, the author argued that what one person could do to
another, he could do also to himself, and that the effect produced
upon another person by physical manipulation may be produced upon
one's self by a strong concentration of will. During our waking
moments he said, the affective faculties of our mind are brought into
play. Thus, we see and wonder; thus, we see and venerate; thus, we see
and pity. These faculties or sentiments are excited and make
themselves felt without any effort on our part. If, then,
circumstances, which previously did not affect us, can thus act upon
us without the exercise of voluntary effort to produce sensation; if
circumstances, in which we had no reason to feel the slightest active
interest, can cause us to venerate, to pity, to wonder--broadly, to
rejoice and to suffer--why should we not be able, by the aid of a
powerful sympathy and an earnest desire, to bring into reasoning
action the faculties which are thus excited by uninteresting and
independent circumstances?
Thus far the author: unconscious that he had fallen into the serious
error of confounding the affective with the intellectual faculties,
and not appearing to understand that, whereas an affective faculty can
be brought into conscious action by independent circumstances, an
intellectual faculty requires a direct mental effort before it is
excited. His essay was not convincing. He wandered off at tangents;
laid down a theory, and, proceeding to establish it, so entangled
himself that he lost its connecting threads; and had evidently been
unable to properly think out a subject which is not entirely unworthy
of consideration. However, he had written his book, and it got into
Dan's hands and into Dan's head. Joshua did not understand it a bit,
and said so; and when he asked Dan to explain it, Dan could scarcely
fit words to what was in his mind.
"Although I cannot explain it very clearly, I can understand it," said
Dan. "He means to say that a person can see with his mental sight"--
"That is, with his eyes shut," interrupted Joshua jocularly.
"Certainly, with his eyes shut," said Dan very decidedly. "Our eyes
are shut when we dream, yet we see things." Joshua became serious
immediately; the answer was a convincing one. "And that proves that we
have two senses of sight--one in the eyes, the other in the mind.
Haven't you seen rings, and circles, and clouds when you are in bed at
night, and before you go to sleep? I can press my face on the pillow
and say--not out loud, and yet I say it and can hear it--which shows
that all our senses are double." (In his eagerness to explain what he
could scarcely comprehend, Dan was in danger of falling into the same
error as the author of the "Triumph of Mind over Matter" had fallen
into, that of flying off at tangents: it was with difficulty he could
keep to his subject.) "Well, Jo, I press my head into the pillow, and
say, 'I will see rings,' and presently I see a little ball, black,
perhaps, and it grows and grows into rings--like what you see when you
throw a stone in the water--larger, and larger, all the different
colors of the rainbow; and then, when they have grown so large as to
appear to have lost themselves in space--just like the rings in the
water, Jo--another little ball shapes itself in the dark, and
gradually becomes visible, and then the rings come and grow and
disappear as the others did. When I have seen enough, I say--not out
loud again, Jo, but silently as I did before--'I don't want to see any
more,' and they don't come again. What I can do with rings, I can do
with clouds. I say, 'I will see clouds,' and they come, all colors of
blue, from white-blue to black-blue; sometimes I see sunsets."
"I have seen them too, Dan," said Joshua; "I have seen skies with
stars in them, just as I have seen them with my eyes wide open."
"Now, if we can do this," continued Dan, "why cannot we do more?"
"We can't do what he says in this book," said Joshua, drumming with
his fingers on the "Philosophy of Dreams."
"I don't know. Why should he write all that unless he knew something?
There is no harm in trying, at all events. Let me see. Here is a chart
of a head, Jo turning to a diagram in the book. Where is
combativeness? Oh! here, at the back of the head, behind the ear. Can
you feel it, Jo? Is it a large bump? No; you are going too high up, I
am sure. Now you are too much in the middle. Ah! that's the place, I
think."
These last sentences referred to Joshua's attempt to find Dan's organ
of combativeness.
"I don't feel any thing particular, Dan," he said.
"But you feel something, don't you, Jo?" asked Dan anxiously. "There
_is_ a bump there, isn't there?"
"A very little one," answered Joshua, earnestly manipulating Dan's
head, and pressing the bump. "Do you feel spiteful?"
"No," said Dan, laughing.
"There's a bump twice as large just above your fighting one."
"What is that bump?" said Dan, examining the diagram again. "Ah that
must be adhesiveness."
"I don't know what that means."
"Give me the dictionary;" and Dan with eager fingers turned over the
pages of an old Walker's Dictionary. "'Adhesive--sticking,
tenacious,'" he read. "That is, that I stick to a thing, as I mean to
do to this. Now I'll tell you what we'll do, Jo. I shall sleep at your
house to-morrow night, and when I am asleep, you shall press my organ
of combativeness--put your fingers on it--yes, there; and when I wake
I will tell you what I have dreamed of."
"All right," said Joshua, removing his fingers.
"You will be able to find the place again?"
"Yes, Dan."
"And you will be sure to keep awake?"
"Sure, Dan."
The following night, Joshua waited very patiently until Dan was
asleep. He had to wait a long time; for Dan, in consequence of his
anxiety, was longer than usual getting to sleep. Once or twice Joshua
thought that his friend was in the Land of Nod, and he commenced
operations, but he was interrupted by Dan saying drowsily, "I am not
asleep yet, Jo." At length Dan really went off, and then Joshua, very
quietly and with great care, felt for Dan's organ of combativeness,
and pressed it. Joshua looked at his sleeping friend with anxiety.
"Perhaps he will hit out at me," he thought. But Dan lay perfectly
still, and Joshua, after waiting and watching in vain for some
indication of the nature of Dan's sleeping fancies, began to feel very
sleepy himself, and went to bed. In the morning, when they were both
awake, Joshua asked what Dan had dreamed of.
"I can't remember," said Dan, rubbing his eyes.
"I pressed your combativeness for a long time, Dan," said Joshua; "and
I pressed it so hard that I was almost afraid you would hit out."
"I didn't, did I?"
"No; you were as still as a mouse."
"I dreamed of something, though," said Dan, considering. "Oh, I
remember! I dreamed of you, So; you were standing on a big ship, with
a big telescope in your hand. You had no cap on, and your hair was all
flying about."
"Were there any sailors on the ship?"
"A good many."
"Did you quarrel with any of them?"
"I didn't dream of myself at all."
"Did any of the sailors quarrel with me?"
"There wasn't any quarrelling, Jo, that I can remember."
"So you see," said Joshua, "that it is all fudge."
"I don't see that at all. Now I think of it, it isn't likely that I
should dream of quarrelling with any one or fighting with any one when
I was dreaming of you, Jo."
"Or perhaps you haven't any combativeness, Dan."
"Perhaps I haven't. It wouldn't be of much use to me if I had, for I
shouldn't know how to fight."
"Or perhaps your combativeness is so small that it won't act," said
Joshua sportively.
"Don't joke about it, Jo," said Dan. "You don't know how serious I am,
and how disappointed I feel at its being a failure. Will you try it
again to-night?"
Joshua, seeing that Dan was very much in earnest, readily promised;
and the experiment was repeated that night, with the same result.
After that the subject dropped for a time.
But if Dan's organ of adhesiveness--which, phrenologically, means
affection, friendship, attachment--was large, it was scarcely more
powerful than his organ of concentrativeness. His love for Joshua was
perfect. He knew that Joshua's choice of a pursuit would separate him
from his friend. When he said to Joshua, "I shall live in you, Jo,"
the words conveyed the expression of no light feeling, but of a deep
earnest longing and desire to be always with his friend--to be always
with him, although oceans divided them. If no misfortune had befallen
him, if his limbs had been sound and his body strong, Dan would have
been intellectually superior to boys in the same station of life as
himself. Debarred as he was from their amusements, their anxieties,
and their general ways of life he was thrown, as it were, upon his
intellect for consolation. It brought him, by the blessing of God,
such consolation that his misfortune might have been construed into a
thing to be coveted. There is good in every thing.
All Dan's sympathies were with Joshua. Dan admired him for his
determination, for his desire to be better than his fellows. It was
Dan who first declared that Joshua was to be a hero; and Joshua
accepted Dan's dictum with complacency. It threw a halo of romance
around his determination not to be a wood-turner, and not to do as his
father had done before him. The reader, from these remarks, or the
incidents that follow, may now or presently understand why the
wildly-vague essay on the "Philosophy of Dreams; or the Triumph of
Mind over Matter," took Dan's mind prisoner and so infatuated him.
Referring to the book again, after the failure of the experiments upon
his organ of combativeness, Dan found a few simple directions by which
the reader could test, in a minor degree, the power of the mind over
the sleeping body. One of the most simple was this: A person, before
he goes to sleep, must resolutely make up his mind to wake at a
certain hour in the morning. He must say to himself, "I want to wake
at five o'clock--at five o'clock--at five o'clock; I _will_ awake at
five o'clock--I will--I will--I will!" and continue to repeat the
words and the determination over and over again until he fell asleep,
with the resolve firmly fixed in his mind. If you do this, said the
writer, you will awake at five o'clock. Dan tried this experiment the
same night--and failed. He repeated it the following night, and the
night following that, with the same result. His sleep was disturbed,
but that was all. But on the fourth night matters were different. Five
o'clock was the hour Dan fixed upon, and nothing was more certain than
that on the fourth night Dan woke up at the precise moment. There were
two churches in the immediate neighborhood, and, as he woke, Dan heard
the first church-bell toll the hour. One, two, three, four, five. Each
stroke of the bell was followed by a dismal hum of woful tribulation.
Then the other church-bell struck the hour, and each stroke of that
was followed by a cheerful ring, bright and crisp and clear. Dan
smiled and hugged himself, and went to sleep again, cherishing wild
hopes which he dared not confess even to himself. He tried the
experiment on the following night, fixing on a different time,
half-past three. Undaunted by that and many other failures, he tried
again and again, until one night he awoke when it was dark. He waited
anxiously to hear the clocks strike. It seemed to be a very long
half-hour, but the church-bell struck at last. One, two, three, four.
With a droning sound at the end of each stroke, as if a myriad bees,
imprisoned in a cell, were giving vent to a long-sustained and
simultaneous groan of entreaty to be set free; or as if the bell were
wailing for the hour that was dead. Then the joyous church-bell struck
One, two, three, four. A wedding-peal in each stroke; sparkling,
although invisible, like stars in a clear sky on a frosty night.
Dan went to sleep, almost perfectly happy.
He repeated his experiment every night, until he had a very nearly
perfect command over sleep as far as regarded time, and could wake
almost at any hour he desired. Then he took a forward step. While
playing with his birds he said, "To-night I will dream of you." But the
thought intervened that he had often dreamed of the birds and that to
dream of them that night would not be very remarkable. So he said,
"No, I will not dream of the birds that are living; I will dream of
Golden Cloud." It was a long time now since Golden Cloud had been
buried, but Dan had never forgotten his pet. When he went to bed he
said, "I will dream of Golden Cloud--a pleasant dream." And he dwelt
upon his wish, and expressed it in words, again and again. That night
he dreamed of Golden Cloud, and of its pretty tricks; of its growing
old and shaky; of its death and burial. Then he saw something that he
had never seen before. He saw it lying quite contented and happy at
the bottom of its flower-pot coffin, and when he chirruped to it, it
chirruped in return.
He told his dream to Joshua.
"I have dreamed of Golden Cloud a good many times," said Joshua.
"But I made up my mind especially to dream of Golden Cloud," said Dan,
"and I dreamed of it the same night. At other times, my dreaming of it
was not premeditated. It came in the usual way of dreams."
"What do you want me to believe from all this Dan?
"That, as the author of that book says, you can dream of any thing you
wish. I scarcely dare believe that I shall be able to dream of what I
shall most desire by and by. By and by, Jo," he repeatedly sadly,
"when you and me are parted."
Joshua threw his arms around Dan's neck.
"And you are doing all this, dear Dan, because you want to dream of
me?"
"And because I want to be with you, Jo, and to see things that you
see, and never, never to be parted from you." The wistful tears ran
down Dan's cheek as he said these words.
"It would be very wonderful," said Joshua; "almost too wonderful. And
I shall think, 'Dan is here with me, although I cannot see him.'"
"Listen again to what he says, Jo," said Dan, opening the "Triumph of
Mind over Matter." "A person can so command and control his mental
forces as to train himself to dream of events that are actually taking
place at a distance from him, at the precise moment they occur."
"And that is what you want to do when I am away, Dan."
"That is what I want to do when you are away, dear Jo."
"I am positive you can't do it."
"Why? I dreamed of Golden Cloud when I wanted to."
"I can understand that. But how did you dream of Golden Cloud, Dan?
You dreamed of him as if he was alive"--
"At first I did; but afterwards I saw him in the flower-pot, dead."
"And Golden Cloud chirruped to you?"
"Yes, Jo."
"Think again, Dan. Golden Cloud was dead, and Golden Cloud chirruped
to you!"
"Yes, Jo," faltered Dan, beginning to understand the drift of Joshua's
remarks.
"That is not dreaming of things as they are, Dan," said Joshua gently,
taking Dan's hand and patting it. "If you could dream of Golden Cloud
as he is now, you would see nothing of him but a few bones--feathers
and flesh all turned to clay. Not a chirrup in him, Dan dear, not a
chirrup!"
Dan covered his eyes with his hand, and the tears came through his
fingers, But he soon recovered himself.
"You are right, Jo," he said: "yet I'm not quite wrong. The man who
wrote that book knew things, depend upon it. He was not a fool. _I_
was, to think I could do such wonders in so short a time."
Dan showed, in the last sentence, that he did not intend to relinquish
his desire. He said nothing more about it, however, and in a few
minutes the pair of bullfinches were on the table in a little cage,
whistling, "Rule, Britannia," the high notes of which one of the birds
took with consummate ease.