My birth. The elder Baron reads my horoscope. Birth of Bulger. The
elder Baron puts on mud-shoes and goes out for a walk. What he
discovers. My wonderful precocity. My love for Bulger. My terrible
fall into the lake of mud. How the Melodious Sneezers in their
mud-shoes attempted to rescue me. Their failure. Bulger comes to
their assistance. How I was dug out and restored to my mother.
Remarkable effect of the warm mud on my head and brain. The
Melodious Sneezers are afraid of me. My fondness for arithmetic and
languages. Our farewell to the Melodious Sneezers, and return home.
How I discharged my tutors, and how the elder Baron forced them to
pay for the instruction I had given them.
[Illustration: BULGER WITH HIS MUD SHOES ON.]
At this point my hand trembles and the ink flows unsteadily from my pen.
I am about to record certain events which, I feel assured the reader
will agree with me in considering to be the most interesting of my
strange and varied life. Possibly I should say interesting to me; for,
gentle reader, one of these “certain events” above referred to is a no
less important occurrence than my birth into this grand and beautiful
world—a world which has proven to be full of wonderful things and of
more wonderful beings, as you shall see as I go on with my story.
I was born in midsummer. It was the night season.
Ten thousand stars twinkled over the cradle of that wretched, little,
helpless, lump of clay; but brighter than all, like a crimson torch
flaming in the skies, Sirius, the dog star, shone down upon me!
My father looked up at the heavens and smiling, murmured: “Little
stranger, thou shalt ever be a lover of dogs. Thy smile shall be joy to
them, thy words music and in some four-footed beast of their race shalt
thou find thy best, thy faithfulest, thy truest friend.”
As if to set the very stamp of truth upon my father’s words at that very
instant a cry of a mother dog was heard in an adjoining room and one of
the Royal household Chew-lâ-â came running into my presence with a
basket of tiny puppies. My father laughingly seized the wicker cradle of
this newly arrived family and holding it up to me, cried out:
“Choose, little baron, choose thee a friend and companion.” I put out my
tiny baby hand and it rested upon one with a particularly large head.
“Ha! ha!” laughed my father, “thou hast well chosen, little baron, for
him thou hast chosen hath so much brain that his head doth fairly bulge
with it.”
And when my infant tongue came to wrestle with that word, it was twisted
into “Bulger.” And thus it was that Bulger and I started out on life’s
journey at almost the same moment! Upon the following day my father made
discovery that the waters had begun to recede in the night, and as he
looked down from our lofty dwelling, he saw that it now stood apparently
in the centre of quite an extensive island. After breakfast, in
accordance with the custom of the country, my father put on a pair of
King Chew-chew-lô’s wooden shoes which were worn by all of the Melodious
Sneezers when attempting to move about on the surface of the soft mud
occasioned by the inundation.
These wooden shoes are extremely light although quite as long and as
broad as snow shoes. The soles being polished, the wearer is enabled to
glide over the mud which, from the nature of the soil is very oily, with
the same rapidity as a runner upon snow shoes.
After an excursion of several hours up hill and down dale my father
returned with this piece of strange intelligence, namely, that their
habitation had undoubtedly, prior to the falling of the waters been
situated in a lake; but that by degrees, as the waters had receded, an
island had been formed, which somewhat later had been transformed into a
peninsula, which in its turn by a still further sinking of the waters,
had been changed into the crown of a mountain with gently sloping sides
so that, as he reported to my mother, to his dying day it would be
impossible for him to say whether his son had been born in a lake, on an
island, upon a peninsula or on a mountain top, a fact which pained him
extremely, for, like all the members of his family, he took the greatest
pride in recording important events with scrupulous exactitude, even to
the smallest detail.
Unlike most babes, who seem content to pass the first half year or so of
their lives eating, sleeping and crying, I from the very outset
displayed a most astonishing precocity.
When only a few weeks old, although I could not talk, yet I had learned
to whistle for Bulger, whose development in mind and body seemed to keep
even pace with mine and who passed most of his time looking up into my
childish face with an expression which meant only too plainly:
“Oh, I shall be so glad when that little tongue is unloosed so that you
may call me Bulger and bid me do your will.”
Nor had he long to wait.
The one thing, which, at this early period of my life gave me most joy,
was the sunlight.
Within doors, I was fretful, peevish, irritable, but once out in the
open air, my whole nature changed. I drank in the soft, balmy atmosphere
with a vigor and a satisfaction that delighted my father. My face
brightened, my eyes traveled from valley to hill, from mountain-top to
sky.
Into such an ecstacy of pleasure did this sight of the great world throw
me, that my mother became anxious lest it presaged some great evil that
was to happen unto me.
But the stately Baron only smiled. “Fear nothing, wife, it only means
that within that little head dwells a most wonderfully active mind for a
child of its months.”
Whenever Bulger heard his little master crying out in joyful tones at
sight of the beautiful world, he was sure to be seized with a fit of
violent barking, during which he sprang around about me with the wildest
and most extravagant manifestations of sympathy.
Without a doubt, there was a wonderful bond of affection between us.
To my mother’s-I had almost said horror, I, one day while she was
walking with me in her arms, upon the broad veranda, which encircled
Chewchewlô’s palaces, attempted to throw myself from her arms, crying
out in German: Los! Los! (Let me go! Let me go!) I was but two months
old and the loud and vigorous tone in which I pronounced this first word
which I had spoken in my mother’s tongue fairly startled her.
I had, up to that time, apparently been more interested in the soft and
musical language of my royal nurse, Chewlâ, in which I could make myself
understood very easily. About this time an accident happened to me
which, although it did not bring about, it greatly hastened the release
from parently restraint, so ardently desired, both by Bulger and by me,
for from my very entrance into this world something told me that I
should be a famous child, not a mere, precocious youth who is made use
of by his parents at social gatherings to bore people already in poor
spirits, by mounting upon chair or table and declaiming verses,
parrotlike, with half a dozen woodeny, jerky gestures; but a genuine
hero, a real traveler, not afraid to brave a tempest, face a wild beast
or bully a barbarous people into doing as he wanted them to do.
It was my mother’s custom in the cool of the day to sit with me on the
broad veranda while she darned my father’s stockings; for, although of
gentle birth, she had been so accustomed when a girl to exercise German
thrift in all things that now, even though she had become the wife of a
real baron, she could not forego the pleasure of doing things in those
good old ways.
And thus she saved my father many a pfennig which the good man bestowed
upon the worthy poor and went down to the grave loaded with their
blessings.
At such a time it was that a sudden fit of sneezing seized my mother and
to her unspeakable horror she let me slip from her arms. Down, down I
fell, striking in the soft mud and disappearing from sight.
The poor woman dropped to the floor like lead.
The stately baron rose to his feet and the color fled from his manly
cheek.
But Chew-chew-lô, who fortunately was paying a visit to my father, only
smiled.
“Unfeeling barbarian!” roared the great baron, “hast no respect for a
father’s tears, a mother’s anguish? Out upon thee! Would to heaven I had
never entered thy domain!” Chew-chew-lô spake not a word. Turning with
imperious mien and right royal manner towards a crowd of retainers, he
waved his hand.
Quicker than thought the band of Melodious Sneezers sprang to their
wooden shoes.
Away, away, they darted like black bats on the wing.
The baron saw that in his terrible grief he had let his better judgment
slip away, and with pallid face and bended head stood supporting the
fainting form of his wife.
He felt, he knew, that his presence among the Melodious Sneezers at this
moment would only disconcert them, impede their progress, and possibly
so confuse them that all their efforts might be in vain. They, from
their childhood, were so accustomed to wear those huge wooden shoes, to
move about on the surface of this treacherous mud, that if it were
possible for human hands to restore his son to his arms, theirs would do
it.
And so he spoke a few words of encouragement in my mother’s ear, and
continued to stand like a statue, with his gaze riveted upon the long
files of Melodious Sneezers, as they wound around the crest of the
mountain to gain the spot where, as they judged, I had disappeared.
Armed with their light, broad, wooden shovels, their dusky arms rose and
fell with wonderful precision and regularity, keeping time with the
musical notes of their sneezing; now soft and low, now breaking out into
a wild and galloping measure.
Down! Down! Down!
[Illustration: THREE PORTRAITS SHOWING THE WONDERFUL GROWTH OF MY
BRAIN.]
And yet they delved in vain!
No sign of me was there to gladden the hearts of my poor, grief-stricken
parents.
But hark!
What is that shrill cry?
It is not human!
No; for it is Bulger’s bark, or rather it is Bulger’s yelp.
He had been watching the band of Melodious Sneezers, as their white
shovels rose and fell all in vain, with his head thrust through the
railings of the veranda.
No one was there with mind and heart enough to catch the meaning of that
poor yelp.
Chew-chew-lô saw that his men were standing, leaning on their shovels,
with looks of doubt and hesitation in their eyes.
The King was silent.
It was the great baron who spoke:
“Oh, let them not give o’er! My life, my wealth, my all, are thine,
good, kind Chew-Chew——”
A fit of sneezing cut short his appeal.
Again Bulger’s cry was raised, and this time the King heeded it.
An attendant saw the royal nod, and hastening to bind broad wooden cups
upon the dog’s feet, he was turned loose upon the surface of the mud.
What is man, with his boasted intelligence?
They were ten paces or more distant from the point where I had
disappeared.
Yelping, barking, and whining by turns, my dear Bulger hurried to the
spot where his unerring scent told him that his beloved little master
had gone down.
Again the band of Melodious Sneezers set to work with renewed vigor,
their white shovels flashing with strange effect against the inky
blackness of the mud.
Bulger encouraged them with loud and joyful barkings.
Suddenly a clear, ringing, melodious “chew” rent the air.
They had caught sight of me!
With rare foresight for one of my months, I had closed my nostrils with
one hand before reaching the mud, and had thus saved my lungs from
filling up.
But how useless would have been this precaution, had not my faithful
Bulger come to my rescue!
His joy now knew no bounds.
I thought that I caught a glimpse of a smile on the old baron’s
tear-stained cheek, as his boy was borne to the veranda, more like an
animated lump of earth than aught else, for the air had revived me. My
eyes were not only wide open, but they were the only clean place on my
whole body.
Utterly regardless of my filthy condition, my fond mother clasped me
convulsively to her breast, and I verily believe that she would have
pressed her lips upon my mud-covered head and face, had she not seen the
baron’s broad palm held in suspicious proximity, while her mother’s
heart was emptying itself out in words. A few basins of warm water, and
I was myself again.
No, I was never myself again. My bath in the warm mud of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ
effected a most remarkable change in me; it checked the growth of my
body and turned all my strength upwards into my head and brain.
In one short month my head almost doubled in size.
My baby face and expression were gone!
And ere another moon had filled her horns I had grown to be a living
wonder!
Not only was the size of my head something remarkable, but from my eyes
beamed an astonishing intelligence.
The poor women of Lâ-aah-chew-lâ Land crouched in front of me as if I
were a being from another world and then tapping their foreheads they
approached my mother and whispered:
“Most gracious Chew-lâ-â-â-â-â-â the Great Spirit has made a mistake and
put two souls in there instead of one!”
And then they bent their graceful bodies till their foreheads touched my
mother’s feet and withdrew, going out backwards like the best regulated
court ladies, each leveling her finger at me and opening wide her eyes
as she disappeared through the door.
The whole scene was so grotesque that I burst out into a shout of
laughter.
Upon hearing which, the poor creatures tumbled headlong over each other
in their mad efforts to get outside of the house, shrieking at the top
of their voices:
“Save us! save us! He will bewitch us!”
“Little Baron!” said my father in a tone of mock anger, “you should not
have frightened the ladies of King Chew-chew-lô’s Court!”
Chew-pâ! Chew-pâ! (Idiots! Idiots!) I replied, looking up from my slate
upon which I was working out an example in arithmetic, for I was very
fond of figures.
In fact, my father had already taught me addition by showing me how to
trade off worthless glass beads for valuable ivory, and division, by
taking away ninety cents from every dollar I made. Long before I could
read or write, I knew the letters of several languages by name, and
could spell any word which had no silent letter in it. No one took more
delight in my wonderful accomplishments than Bulger.
He seemed to know instinctively that his little master was no ordinary
being and respected him accordingly. We now bade adieu to the Land of
Lâ-aah-chew-lâ and the Melodious Sneezers.
King Chew-chew-lô with a mighty band of retainers accompanied us to his
frontier, making the forests resound with their melodious
chew-chew-a-ing. Standing on the old baron’s shoulders, I waved them a
last goodbye to which they answered with such a perfect whirlwind of
Chew-chew-â’s that Bulger fairly howled with delight.
Any special honor paid to his master was always a personal matter to
him. The elder baron had intended to penetrate still further into the
heart of Africa; but the fact is, that the continual growth of my mind
was so wonderful that it engrossed his attention from morn till night.
He endeavored to hide this from me; but all to no purpose.
Before I was two years old my brain had grown so heavy that my mother
was obliged to sew pieces of lead in the soles of my shoes to keep me
right end upwards, and yet, in spite of this precaution, I was often
found standing upon my head working out difficult mathematical problems
by making use of my toes, as the Chinese do their counting machines.
The first thing which my father did upon reaching home was to take me to
a phrenologist in order to have a chart made of my head.
The examination lasted a month.
At length, upon the completion of the chart, it was found that I
possessed thirty-two distinct bumps.
Well-developed ones, too!
It was, therefore, at once determined to engage thirty-two learned
tutors, each tutor to have charge of a separate bump and to do his
utmost to enlarge it even if it grew to be a horn.
My father was resolved to leave nothing undone in order to develop my
mental powers to the utmost limit. I said nothing either for or against
the scheme.
In one short year I had learned all that the thirty-two tutors could
teach me, and, what is more, I had taught each one of them fifty things
which he had not known before, and which I had learned while traveling
in foreign lands with my parents.
One fine morning to the great surprise of my thirty-two tutors I
discharged the whole of them.
The elder baron at my suggestion now sent a bill to each tutor for
services rendered him by me.
Each tutor refused to pay.
The elder baron, at my suggestion, now caused legal process to be served
upon each one of them.
The court upon hearing my testimony rendered an opinion which covered
five thousand pages of legal cap paper and required a whole week to
read, in which they held that each thing which I had taught to each one
of my thirty-two tutors was so remarkably strange and peculiar that in
the eye of the law it was worth at least one hundred dollars. That made
the bill of each tutor amount to five thousand dollars, or one hundred
and sixty thousand dollars in all.
The court then adjourned for a year, all three judges being so worn out
mentally and physically as to need a twelve months’ rest before taking
up any other business.
[Illustration: THE THREE WEARY JUDGES AS THEY APPEARED AT THE CLOSE OF
MY SUIT AGAINST MY TUTORS.]