Chapter Eleven--All About Gypsy
This record of my life at Rivermouth would be strangely incomplete did Inot devote an entire chapter to Gypsy. I had other pets, of course; forwhat healthy boy could long exist without numerous friends in the animalkingdom? I had two white mice that were forever gnawing their way outof a pasteboard chateau, and crawling over my face when I lay asleep. Iused to keep the pink-eyed little beggars in my bedroom, greatly to theannoyance of Miss Abigail, who was constantly fancying that one of themice had secreted itself somewhere about her person.
I also owned a dog, a terrier, who managed in some inscrutable wayto pick a quarrel with the moon, and on bright nights kept up such aki-yi-ing in our back garden, that we were finally forced to disposeof him at private sale. He was purchased by Mr. Oxford, the butcher.I protested against the arrangement and ever afterwards, when we hadsausages from Mr. Oxford's shop, I made believe I detected in themcertain evidences that Cato had been foully dealt with.
Of birds I had no end, robins, purple-martins, wrens, bulfinches,bobolinks, ringdoves, and pigeons. At one time I took solid comfortin the iniquitous society of a dissipated old parrot, who talked soterribly, that the Rev. Wibird Hawkins, happening to get a sample ofPoll's vituperative powers, pronounced him "a benighted heathen," andadvised the Captain to get rid of him. A brace of turtles supplantedthe parrot in my affections; the turtles gave way to rabbits; and therabbits in turn yielded to the superior charms of a small monkey, whichthe Captain bought of a sailor lately from the coast of Africa.
But Gypsy was the prime favorite, in spite of many rivals. I never grewweary of her. She was the most knowing little thing in the world. Herproper sphere in life--and the one to which she ultimately attained--wasthe saw-dust arena of a travelling circus. There was nothing short ofthe three R's, reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic, that Gypsy couldn't betaught. The gift of speech was not hers, but the faculty of thought was.
My little friend, to be sure, was not exempt from certain gracefulweaknesses, inseparable, perhaps, from the female character. She wasvery pretty, and she knew it. She was also passionately fond of dress--bywhich I mean her best harness. When she had this on, her curvetingsand prancings were laughable, though in ordinary tackle she went alongdemurely enough. There was something in the enamelled leather and thesilver-washed mountings that chimed with her artistic sense. To have hermane braided, and a rose or a pansy stuck into her forelock, was to makeher too conceited for anything.
She had another trait not rare among her sex. She liked the attentionsof young gentlemen, while the society of girls bored her. She would dragthem, sulkily, in the cart; but as for permitting one of them in thesaddle, the idea was preposterous. Once when Pepper Whitcomb's sister,in spite of our remonstrances, ventured to mount her, Gypsy gave alittle indignant neigh, and tossed the gentle Emma heels over head in notime. But with any of the boys the mare was as docile as a lamb.
Her treatment of the several members of the family was comical. For theCaptain she entertained a wholesome respect, and was always on her goodbehavior when he was around. As to Miss Abigail, Gypsy simply laughed ather--literally laughed, contracting her upper lip and displaying all hersnow-white teeth, as if something about Miss Abigail struck her, Gypsy,as being extremely ridiculous.
Kitty Collins, for some reason or another, was afraid of the pony, orpretended to be. The sagacious little animal knew it, of course, andfrequently, when Kitty was banging out clothes near the stable, the marebeing loose in the yard, would make short plunges at her. Once Gypsyseized the basket of clothespins with her teeth, and rising on her hindlegs, pawing the air with her fore feet followed Kitty clear up to thescullery steps.
That part of the yard was shut off from the rest by a gate; but no gatewas proof against Gypsy's ingenuity. She could let down bars, lift uplatches, draw bolts, and turn all sorts of buttons. This accomplishmentrendered it hazardous for Miss Abigail or Kitty to leave any eatables onthe kitchen table near the window. On one occasion Gypsy put in her headand lapped up six custard pies that had been placed by the casement tocool.
An account of my young lady's various pranks would fill a thickvolume. A favorite trick of hers, on being requested to "walk like MissAbigail," was to assume a little skittish gait so true to naturethat Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the cleverness of theimitation.
The idea of putting Gypsy through a systematic course of instructionwas suggested to me by a visit to the circus which gave an annualperformance in Rivermouth. This show embraced among its attractions anumber of trained Shetland ponies, and I determined that Gypsy shouldlikewise have the benefit of a liberal education. I succeeded inteaching her to waltz, to fire a pistol by tugging at a string tiedto the trigger, to lie down dead, to wink one eye, and to execute manyother feats of a difficult nature. She took to her studies admirably,and enjoyed the whole thing as much as anyone.
The monkey was a perpetual marvel to Gypsy. They became bosom-friendsin an incredibly brief period, and were never easy out of each other'ssight. Prince Zany--that's what Pepper Whitcomb and I christened him oneday, much to the disgust of the monkey, who bit a piece out of Pepper'snose--resided in the stable, and went to roost every night on the pony'sback, where I usually found him in the morning. Whenever I rode out, Iwas obliged to secure his Highness the Prince with a stout cord to thefence, he chattering all the time like a madman.
One afternoon as I was cantering through the crowded part of the town, Inoticed that the people in the street stopped, stared at me, and fell tolaughing. I turned round in the saddle, and there was Zany, with a greatburdock leaf in his paw, perched up behind me on the crupper, as solemnas a judge.
After a few months, poor Zany sickened mysteriously, and died. The darkthought occurred to me then, and comes back to me now with redoubledforce, that Miss Abigail must have given him some hot-drops. Zany lefta large circle of sorrowing friends, if not relatives. Gypsy, I think,never entirely recovered from the shock occasioned by his earlydemise. She became fonder of me, though; and one of her cunningestdemonstrations was to escape from the stable-yard, and trot up to thedoor of the Temple Grammar School, where I would discover her at recesspatiently waiting for me, with her fore feet on the second step, andwisps of straw standing out all over her, like quills upon the fretfulporcupine.
I should fail if I tried to tell you how dear the pony was to me. Evenhard, unloving men become attached to the horses they take care of; soI, who was neither unloving nor hard, grew to love every glossy hair ofthe pretty little creature that depended on me for her soft straw bedand her daily modicum of oats. In my prayer at night I never forgot tomention Gypsy with the rest of the family--generally setting forth herclaims first.
Whatever relates to Gypsy belongs properly to this narrative; thereforeI offer no apology for rescuing from oblivion, and boldly printing herea short composition which I wrote in the early part of my first quarterat the Temple Grammar School. It is my maiden effort in a difficult art,and is, perhaps, lacking in those graces of thought and style which arereached only after the severest practice.
Every Wednesday morning, on entering school, each pupil was expectedto lay his exercise on Mr. Grimshaw's desk; the subject was usuallyselected by Mr. Grimshaw himself, the Monday previous. With a humorcharacteristic of him, our teacher had instituted two prizes, one forthe best and the other for the worst composition of the month. The firstprize consisted of a penknife, or a pencil-case, or some such articledear to the heart of youth; the second prize entitled the winner to wearfor an hour or two a sort of conical paper cap, on the front of whichwas written, in tall letters, this modest admission: I AM A DUNCE! Thecompetitor who took prize No. 2. wasn't generally an object of envy.
My pulse beat high with pride and expectation that Wednesday morning, asI laid my essay, neatly folded, on the master's table. I firmly declineto say which prize I won; but here's the composition to speak foritself.
It is no small-author vanity that induces me to publish this strayleaf of na
tural history. I lay it before our young folks, not fortheir admiration, but for their criticism. Let each reader takehis lead-pencil and remorselessly correct the orthography, thecapitalization, and the punctuation of the essay. I shall not feel hurtat seeing my treatise cut all to pieces; though I think highly of theproduction, not on account of its literary excellence, which I candidlyadmit is not overpowering, but because it was written years and yearsago about Gypsy, by a little fellow who, when I strive to recall him,appears to me like a reduced ghost of my present self.
I am confident that any reader who has ever had pets, birds or animals,will forgive me for this brief digression.