by Bret Harte
BABY SYLVESTER.
It was at a little mining-camp in the California Sierras that he firstdawned upon me in all his grotesque sweetness.
I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to intercept thefriend who was the object of my visit. He had gone "prospecting,"--sothey told me on the river,--and would not probably return until latein the afternoon. They could not say what direction he had taken; theycould not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. Butit was the general opinion that I had better wait.
I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of the river;and apparently the only other human beings in the world were myinterlocutors, who were even then just disappearing from my horizon,down the steep bank, toward the river's dry bed. I approached the edgeof the bank.
Where could I wait?
Oh! anywhere,--down with them on the river-bar, where they were working,if I liked. Or I could make myself at home in any of those cabins thatI found lying round loose. Or perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanterfor me in my friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see those three largesugar-pines, and, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney,over the bushes? Well, that was my friend's,--that was Dick Sylvester'scabin. I could stake my horse in that little hollow, and just hang roundthere till he came. I would find some books in the shanty. I could amusemyself with them or I could play with the baby.
Do what?
But they had already gone. I leaned over the bank, and called aftertheir vanishing figures,--"What did you say I could do?" The answerfloated slowly up on the hot, sluggish air,--
"Pla-a-y with the ba-by."
The lazy echoes took it up, and tossed it languidly from hill to hill,until Bald Mountain opposite made some incoherent remark about the baby;and then all was still.
I must have been mistaken. My friend was not a man of family; therewas not a woman within forty miles of the river camp; he never was sopassionately devoted to children as to import a luxury so expensive. Imust have been mistaken.
I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As we slowly climbed thenarrow trail, the little settlement might have been some exhumedPompeiian suburb, so deserted and silent were its habitations. The opendoors plainly disclosed each rudely-furnished interior,--the rough pinetable, with the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing; thewooden bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. A golden lizard,the very genius of desolate stillness, had stopped breathless upon thethreshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped impudently into the windowof another; a woodpecker, with the general flavor of undertakingwhich distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer from thecoffin-lid of the roof on which he was professionally engaged, aswe passed. For a moment I half regretted that I had not accepted theinvitation to the river-bed; but, the next moment, a breeze swept up thelong, dark canyon, and the waiting files of the pines beyond bent towardme in salutation. I think my horse understood, as well as myself,that it was the cabins that made the solitude human, and thereforeunbearable; for he quickened his pace, and with a gentle trot broughtme to the edge of the wood, and the three pines that stood like vedettesbefore the Sylvester outpost.
Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I unslung the long riata fromthe saddle-bow, and, tethering him to a young sapling, turned toward thecabin. But I had gone only a few steps, when I heard a quick trot behindme; and poor Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with fear, was at myheels. I looked hurriedly around. The breeze had died away; and onlyan occasional breath from the deep-chested woods, more like a long sighthan any articulate sound, or the dry singing of a cicala in theheated canyon, were to be heard. I examined the ground carefully forrattlesnakes, but in vain. Yet here was Pomposo shivering from hisarched neck to his sensitive haunches, his very flanks pulsating withterror. I soothed him as well as I could, and then walked to the edgeof the wood, and peered into its dark recesses. The bright flash of abird's wing, or the quick dart of a squirrel, was all I saw. I confessit was with something of superstitious expectation that I again turnedtowards the cabin. A fairy-child, attended by Titania and her train,lying in an expensive cradle, would not have surprised me: a SleepingBeauty, whose awakening would have repeopled these solitudes with lifeand energy, I am afraid I began to confidently look for, and would havekissed without hesitation.
But I found none of these. Here was the evidence of my friend'staste and refinement, in the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in thepicturesque arrangement of the fur-skins that covered the floor andfurniture, and the striped serape lying on the wooden couch. Here werethe walls fancifully papered with illustrations from "The London News;"here was the woodcut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the chimney, quaintlyframed with blue-jays' wings; here were his few favorite books on theswinging-shelf; and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy of"Punch." Dear Dick! The flour-sack was sometimes empty; but the gentlesatirist seldom missed his weekly visit.
I threw myself on the couch, and tried to read. But I soon exhausted myinterest in my friend's library, and lay there staring through the opendoor on the green hillside beyond. The breeze again sprang up; and adelicious coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stolethrough the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumblebees outside thecanvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, andthe fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop my eyelids. I pulled theserape over me, as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze,and in a few moments was asleep.
I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however,during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape;for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a despairing hand as it wasdisappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly arousedto the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equallypersistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing itswiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake;for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began toemerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging theserape after it. There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,--amere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, butunmistakably a grizzly cub!
I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspectas it slowly raised its small, wondering eyes to mine. It was somuch taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its forelegs were sodisproportionately small, that, in walking, its hind-feet invariablytook precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed,inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntarysomersaults with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterousappearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's,into which it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. As thissomewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then,possibly recognizing in the stranger the same species as its master, itpaused. Presently it slowly raised itself on its hind-legs, and vaguelyand deprecatingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little hooks of steel.I took the paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were friends.The little affair of the serape was forgotten.
Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an actof delicate courtesy. Following the direction of his eyes, I had nodifficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge-pole the sugar-box andthe square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is neverwithout. While he was eating them, I had time to examine him moreclosely. His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated gray,deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was excessively long,thick, and soft as eider-down; the cushions of flesh beneath perfectlyinfantine in their texture and contour. He was so very young, that thepalms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except forthe bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, therewas not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He was asfree from angles as one of Leda's offspring. Your caressing handsank away in his fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long was anintoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to
embracehim, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.
When he had finished the sugar, he rolled out of the door with ahalf-diffident, half-inviting look in his eyes as if he expected meto follow. I did so; but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scentedPomposo in the hollow not only revealed the cause of his former terror,but decided me to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation,he concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a certainimpish look in his eye, that he fully understood and rather enjoyed thefright of Pomposo. As he rolled along at my side, with a gait not unlikea drunken sailor, I discovered that his long hair concealed a leathercollar around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word"Baby!" I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. This,then, was the "baby" with whom I was to "play."
How we "played;" how Baby allowed me to roll him down hill, crawlingand puffing up again each time with perfect good-humor; how he climbeda young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of thetopmost branches; how, after getting it, he refused to descend until itsuited his pleasure; how, when he did come down, he persisted in walkingabout on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass,clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last,and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantlesscabins, with a bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly endeavoring toextract its contents,--these and other details of that eventful day Ishall not weary the reader with now. Enough that, when Dick Sylvesterreturned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, animmense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep. Sylvester's firstwords after our greeting were,--
"Isn't he delicious?"
"Perfectly. Where did you get him?"
"Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here," said Dick, lightinghis pipe. "Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly clean shot; nevermoved afterwards. Baby crawled out, scared, but unhurt. She must havebeen carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she faced me; forhe wasn't more than three days old, and not steady on his pins. He takesthe only milk that comes to the settlement, brought up by Adams Expressat seven o'clock every morning. They say he looks like me. Do youthink so?" asked Dick with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-coloredmustachios, and evidently assuming his best expression.
I took leave of the baby early the next morning in Sylvester'scabin, and, out of respect to Pomposo's feelings, rode by without anypostscript of expression. But the night before I had made Sylvestersolemnly swear, that, in the event of any separation between himself andBaby, it should revert to me. "At the same time," he had added, "it'sonly fair to say that I don't think of dying just yet, old fellow; and Idon't know of any thing else that would part the cub and me."
Two months after this conversation, as I was turning over the morning'smail at my office in San Francisco, I noticed a letter bearingSylvester's familiar hand. But it was post-marked "Stockton," and Iopened it with some anxiety at once. Its contents were as follows:--
"O FRANK!--Don't you remember what we agreed upon anent the baby? Well,consider me as dead for the next six months, or gone where cubs can'tfollow me,--East. I know you love the baby; but do you think, dearboy,--now, really, do you think you COULD be a father to it? Considerthis well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare youtake upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one soyoung and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Thinkof the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, andlet me know speedily; for I've got him as far as this place, and he'skicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like amaniac. Let me know by telegraph at once.
"SYLVESTER.
"P.S.--Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take things always asquietly as he did. He dropped rather heavily on two of Watson's 'purps'last week, and snatched old Watson himself bald headed, for interfering.You remember Watson? For an intelligent man, he knows very little ofCalifornia fauna. How are you fixed for bears on Montgomery Street, Imean in regard to corrals and things? S.
"P.P.S.--He's got some new tricks. The boys have been teaching him toput up his hands with them. He slings an ugly left. S."
I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby overcame all otherconsiderations; and I telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester.When I reached my lodgings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaitingme with a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester,--
"All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father to him. S."
It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a moment I wasstaggered at my own precipitation. I had as yet made no preparations,had said nothing to my landlady about her new guest. I expected toarrange every thing in time; and now, through Sylvester's indecenthaste, that time had been shortened twelve hours.
Something, however, must be done at once. I turned to Mrs. Brown. Ihad great reliance in her maternal instincts: I had that still greaterreliance common to our sex in the general tender-heartedness of prettywomen. But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a feeble smile, I triedto introduce the subject with classical ease and lightness. I even said,"If Shakspeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, believed that a lion amongladies was a dreadful thing, what must"--But here I broke down; forMrs. Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once wasmore occupied with my manner than my speech. So I tried a businessbrusquerie, and, placing the telegram in her hand, said hurriedly, "Wemust do something about this at once. It's perfectly absurd; but he willbe here at one to-night. Beg thousand pardons; but business prevented myspeaking before"--and paused out of breath and courage.
Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her pretty eyebrows, turnedthe paper over, and looked on the other side, and then, in a remote andchilling voice, asked me if she understood me to say that the mother wascoming also.
"Oh, dear no!" I exclaimed with considerable relief. "The mother isdead, you know. Sylvester, that is my friend who sent this, shot herwhen the baby was only three days old." But the expression of Mrs.Brown's face at this moment was so alarming, that I saw that nothingbut the fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not verycoherently, I told her all.
She relaxed sweetly. She said I had frightened her with my talk aboutlions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle highlycolored, touched her motherly heart. She was even a little vexed at whatshe called Sylvester's "hard-heartedness." Still I was not without someapprehension. It was two months since I had seen him; and Sylvester'svague allusion to his "slinging an ugly left" pained me. I looked atsympathetic little Mrs. Brown; and the thought of Watson's pups coveredme with guilty confusion.
Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me until he arrived. One o'clockcame, but no Baby. Two o'clock, three o'clock, passed. It was almostfour when there was a wild clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and witha jerk a wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it, andconfronted a stranger. Almost at the same moment, the horses attemptedto run away with the wagon.
The stranger's appearance was, to say the least, disconcerting. Hisclothes were badly torn and frayed; his linen sack hung from hisshoulders like a herald's apron; one of his hands was bandaged; his facescratched; and there was no hat on his dishevelled head. To add to thegeneral effect, he had evidently sought relief from his woes in drink;and he swayed from side to side as he clung to the door-handle, and, ina very thick voice, stated that he had "suthin" for me outside. When hehad finished, the horses made another plunge.
Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened at something.
"Frightened!" laughed the stranger with bitter irony. "Oh, no! Hossishain't frightened! On'y ran away four timesh comin' here. Oh, no!Nobody's frightened. Every thin's all ri'. Ain't it, Bill?" he said,addressing the driver. "On'y been overboard twish; knocked down ahatchway once. Thash nothin'! On'y two men unner doctor's han's atStockton. Thash nothin'! Six hunner dollarsh cover all dammish."
I was too much disheartened to reply, but moved toward the wagon
. Thestranger eyed me with an astonishment that almost sobered him.
"Do you reckon to tackle that animile yourself?" he asked, as hesurveyed me from head to foot.
I did not speak, but, with an appearance of boldness I was far fromfeeling, walked to the wagon, and called "Baby!"
"All ri'. Cash loose them straps, Bill, and stan' clear."
The straps were cut loose; and Baby, the remorseless, the terrible,quietly tumbled to the ground, and, rolling to my side, rubbed hisfoolish head against me.
I think the astonishment of the two men was beyond any vocal expression.Without a word, the drunken stranger got into the wagon, and drove away.
And Baby? He had grown, it is true, a trifle larger; but he was thin,and bore the marks of evident ill usage. His beautiful coat wasmatted and unkempt; and his claws, those bright steel hooks, had beenruthlessly pared to the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless;and the old expression of stupid good humor had changed to one ofintelligent distrust. His intercourse with mankind had evidentlyquickened his intellect, without broadening his moral nature.
I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown from smothering him inblankets, and ruining his digestion with the delicacies of her larder;but I at last got him completely rolled up in the corner of my room, andasleep. I lay awake some time later with plans for his future. I finallydetermined to take him to Oakland--where I had built a little cottage,and always spent my Sundays--the very next day. And in the midst of arosy picture of domestic felicity, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, it was broad day. My eyes at once sought the corner whereBaby had been lying; but he was gone. I sprang from the bed, lookedunder it, searched the closet, but in vain. The door was still locked;but there were the marks of his blunted claws upon the sill of thewindow that I had forgotten to close. He had evidently escaped that way.But where? The window opened upon a balcony, to which the only otherentrance was through the hall. He must be still in the house.
My hand was already upon the bell-rope; but I stayed it in time. If hehad not made himself known, why should I disturb the house? I dressedmyself hurriedly, and slipped into the hall. The first object that metmy eyes was a boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks of Baby'steeth; and, as I looked along the hall, I saw too plainly that the usualarray of freshly-blackened boots and shoes before the lodgers' doorswas not there. As I ascended the stairs, I found another, but with theblacking carefully licked off. On the third floor were two or three moreboots, slightly mouthed; but at this point Baby's taste for blacking hadevidently palled. A little farther on was a ladder, leading to an openscuttle. I mounted the ladder, and reached the flat roof, that formeda continuous level over the row of houses to the corner of the street.Behind the chimney on the very last roof, something was lurking. It wasthe fugitive Baby. He was covered with dust and dirt and fragments ofglass. But he was sitting on his hind-legs, and was eating an enormousslab of peanut candy, with a look of mingled guilt and infinitesatisfaction. He even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach with hisdisengaged fore-paw as I approached. He knew that I was looking forhim; and the expression of his eye said plainly, "The past, at least, issecure."
I hurried him, with the evidences of his guilt, back to the scuttle, anddescended on tiptoe to the floor beneath. Providence favored us: I metno one on the stairs; and his own cushioned tread was inaudible. I thinkhe was conscious of the dangers of detection; for he even foreboreto breathe, or much less chew the last mouthful he had taken; and heskulked at my side with the sirup dropping from his motionless jaws. Ithink he would have silently choked to death just then, for my sake; andit was not until I had reached my room again, and threw myself pantingon the sofa, that I saw how near strangulation he had been. He gulpedonce or twice apologetically, and then walked to the corner of hisown accord, and rolled himself up like an immense sugarplum, sweatingremorse and treacle at every pore.
I locked him in when I went to breakfast, when I found Mrs. Brown'slodgers in a state of intense excitement over certain mysterious eventsof the night before, and the dreadful revelations of the morning. Itappeared that burglars had entered the block from the scuttles; that,being suddenly alarmed, they had quitted our house without committingany depredation, dropping even the boots they had collected in thehalls; but that a desperate attempt had been made to force the till inthe confectioner's shop on the corner, and that the glass show-cases hadbeen ruthlessly smashed. A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen a maskedburglar, on his hands and knees, attempting to enter their scuttle; but,on her shouting, "Away wid yees!" he instantly fled.
I sat through this recital with cheeks that burned uncomfortably; norwas I the less embarrassed, on raising my eyes, to meet Mrs. Brown'sfixed curiously and mischievously on mine. As soon as I could make myescape from the table, I did so, and, running rapidly up stairs, soughtrefuge from any possible inquiry in my own room. Baby was still asleepin the corner. It would not be safe to remove him until the lodgers hadgone down town; and I was revolving in my mind the expediency of keepinghim until night veiled his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye,when there came a cautious tap at my door. I opened it. Mrs. Brownslipped in quietly, closed the door softly, stood with her back againstit, and her hand on the knob, and beckoned me mysteriously towards her.Then she asked in a low voice,--
"Is hair-dye poisonous?"
I was too confounded to speak.
"Oh, do! you know what I mean," she said impatiently. "This stuff." Sheproduced suddenly from behind her a bottle with a Greek label so longas to run two or three times spirally around it from top to bottom. "Hesays 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 ofhaving repeated the name a great many times,--"the old gentleman in theroom above. The simple question I want to ask," she continued with thecalm manner of one who has just convicted another of gross ambiguity oflanguage, "is only this: If some of this stuff were put in a saucer, andleft carelessly on the table, and a child, or a baby, or a cat, or anyyoung animal, should come in at the window, and drink it up,--a wholesaucer full,--because it had a sweet taste, would it be likely to hurtthem?"
I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping peacefully in the corner, anda 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 addedsuddenly, abandoning her lofty manner, and wildly rushing to the cornerwith a frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, "because, if any nastystuff should turn its booful hair a horrid green, or a naughty pink, itwould break its own muzzer's heart, it would!"
But, before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the inefficiency of hair-dye asan internal application, she had darted from the room.
That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, Baby and I decamped fromMrs. Brown's. Distrusting the too emotional nature of that noble animal,the horse, I had recourse to a handcart, drawn by a stout Irishman, toconvey my charge to the ferry. Even then, Baby refused to go, unless Iwalked by the cart, and at times rode in it.
"I wish," said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by the door, wrapped in animmense shawl, and saw us depart, "I wish it looked less solemn,--lesslike a pauper's funeral."
I must admit, that, as I walked by the cart that night, I felt very muchas if I were accompanying the remains of some humble friend to his lastresting-place; and that, when I was obliged to ride in it, I never couldentirely convince myself that I was not helplessly overcome by liquor,or the victim of an accident, en route to the hospital. But at last wereached the ferry. On the boat, I think no one discovered Baby, except adrunken man, who approached me to ask for a light for his cigar, but whosuddenly dropped it, and fled in dismay to the gentlemen's cabin, wherehis incoherent ravings were luckily taken for the earlier indications ofdelirium tremens.
It was nearly midnight when I reached my little cottage on
the outskirtsof Oakland; and it was with a feeling of relief and security that Ientered, locked the door, and turned him loose in the hall, satisfiedthat henceforward his depredations would be limited to my own property.He was very quiet that night; and after he had tried to mount thehatrack, under the mistaken impression that it was intended for his owngymnastic exercise, and knocked all the hats off, he went peaceably tosleep 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 passingto the windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman had greatdifficulty in the delivery of their wares in the morning, and indulgedin unseemly and unnecessary profanity in so doing.
At the end of the week, I determined to invite a few friends to see theBaby, and to that purpose wrote a number of formal invitations. Afterdescanting, at some length, on the great expense and danger attendinghis capture and training, I offered a programme of the performance, ofthe "Infant Phenomenon of Sierran Solitudes," drawn up into the highestprofessional profusion of alliteration and capital letters. A fewextracts 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, andas much of the Crown and Brim thereof, as May be Permitted.
3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the Conduct of the BigBear, The Middle-Sized Bear, and The Little Bear of the Popular NurseryLegend.
4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner of strikingDismay and Terror in the Breasts of Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses.
The morning of the exhibition came; but an hour before the performancethe wretched Baby was missing. The Chinese cook could not indicate hiswhereabouts. I searched the premises thoroughly; and then, in despair,took my hat, and hurried out into the narrow lane that led toward theopen fields and the woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track ofBaby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour's fruitless search, to findmy guests already assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted mydisappointment, my probable loss, and begged their assistance.
"Why," said a Spanish friend, who prided himself on his accurateknowledge of English, to Barker, who seemed to be trying vainly to risefrom his reclining position on the veranda, "why do you not disengageyourself 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 yourselfsuch unnecessary contortion? Ah," he continued, suddenly withdrawing oneof his own feet from the veranda with an evident effort, "I am myselfattached! Surely it is something here!"
It evidently was. My guests were all rising with difficulty. The floorof 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 weresticky 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 likean earthquake. I approached cautiously. I saw, what I had not beforenoticed, that the ground was thrown up; and there, in the middle of animmense grave-like cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, still digging, andslowly but surely sinking from sight in a mass of dust and clay.
What were his intentions? Whether he was stung by remorse, and wished tohide himself from my reproachful eyes, or whether he was simply tryingto 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 stillyielded a thin treacle. He was then taken, and carefully inwrapped inblankets, and locked up in the store-room. The next morning he wasgone! The lower portion of the window sash and pane were gone too.His successful experiments on the fragile texture of glass at theconfectioner's, on the first day of his entrance to civilization, hadnot been lost upon him. His first essay at combining cause and effectended in his escape.
Where he went, where he hid, who captured him, if he did not succeed inreaching the foothills beyond Oakland, even the offer of a large reward,backed by the efforts of an intelligent police, could not discover. Inever 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 thesidewalk, amid the oaths and execrations of the driver. Immediately infront of the car a crowd had gathered around two performing bears and ashowman. One of the animals, thin, emaciated, and the mere wreck of hisnative strength, attracted my attention. I endeavored to attract his. Heturned a pair of bleared, sightless eyes in my direction; but there wasno 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 justmoving 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!"