第37章

It is difficult to convey a just idea of his gayety in connection with his dignity and gravity, which his name expressed.As we know nothing of his family, of course it will be understood that Calvin was his Christian name.He had times of relaxation into utter playfulness, delighting in a ball of yarn, catching sportively at stray ribbons when his mistress was at her toilet, and pursuing his own tail, with hilarity, for lack of anything better.He could amuse himself by the hour, and he did not care for children; perhaps something in his past was present to his memory.He had absolutely no bad habits, and his disposition was perfect.I never saw him exactly angry, though I have seen his tail grow to an enormous size when a strange cat appeared upon his lawn.He disliked cats, evidently regarding them as feline and treacherous, and he had no association with them.Occasionally there would be heard a night concert in the shrubbery.Calvin would ask to have the door opened, and then you would hear a rush and a "pestzt," and the concert would explode, and Calvin would quietly come in and resume his seat on the hearth.There was no trace of anger in his manner, but he would n't have any of that about the house.He had the rare virtue of magnanimity.Although he had fixed notions about his own rights, and extraordinary persistency in getting them, he never showed temper at a repulse; he simply and firmly persisted till he had what he wanted.

His diet was one point; his idea was that of the scholars about dictionaries,--to "get the best." He knew as well as any one what was in the house, and would refuse beef if turkey was to be had; and if there were oysters, he would wait over the turkey to see if the oysters would not be forthcoming.And yet he was not a gross gourmand; he would eat bread if he saw me eating it, and thought he was not being imposed on.His habits of feeding, also, were refined;he never used a knife, and he would put up his hand and draw the fork down to his mouth as gracefully as a grown person.Unless necessity compelled, he would not eat in the kitchen, but insisted upon his meals in the dining-room, and would wait patiently, unless a stranger were present; and then he was sure to importune the visitor, hoping that the latter was ignorant of the rule of the house, and would give him something.They used to say that he preferred as his table-cloth on the floor a certain well-known church journal; but this was said by an Episcopalian.So far as I know, he had no religious prejudices, except that he did not like the association with Romanists.He tolerated the servants, because they belonged to the house, and would sometimes linger by the kitchen stove; but the moment visitors came in he arose, opened the door, and marched into the drawing-room.Yet he enjoyed the company of his equals, and never withdrew, no matter how many callers--whom he recognized as of his society--might come into the drawing-room.Calvin was fond of company, but he wanted to choose it; and I have no doubt that his was an aristocratic fastidiousness rather than one of faith.It is so with most people.

The intelligence of Calvin was something phenomenal, in his rank of life.He established a method of communicating his wants, and even some of his sentiments; and he could help himself in many things.

There was a furnace register in a retired room, where he used to go when he wished to be alone, that he always opened when he desired more heat; but he never shut it, any more than he shut the door after himself.He could do almost everything but speak; and you would declare sometimes that you could see a pathetic longing to do that in his intelligent face.I have no desire to overdraw his qualities, but if there was one thing in him more noticeable than another, it was his fondness for nature.He could content himself for hours at a low window, looking into the ravine and at the great trees, noting the smallest stir there; he delighted, above all things, to accompany me walking about the garden, hearing the birds, getting the smell of the fresh earth, and rejoicing in the sunshine.He followed me and gamboled like a dog, rolling over on the turf and exhibiting his delight in a hundred ways.If I worked, he sat and watched me, or looked off over the bank, and kept his ear open to the twitter in the cherry-trees.When it stormed, he was sure to sit at the window, keenly watching the rain or the snow, glancing up and down at its falling; and a winter tempest always delighted him.I think he was genuinely fond of birds, but, so far as I know, he usually confined himself to one a day; he never killed, as some sportsmen do, for the sake of killing, but only as civilized people do,--from necessity.

He was intimate with the flying-squirrels who dwell in the chestnut-trees,--too intimate, for almost every day in the summer he would bring in one, until he nearly discouraged them.He was, indeed, a superb hunter, and would have been a devastating one, if his bump of destructiveness had not been offset by a bump of moderation.There was very little of the brutality of the lower animals about him; Idon't think he enjoyed rats for themselves, but he knew his business, and for the first few months of his residence with us he waged an awful campaign against the horde, and after that his simple presence was sufficient to deter them from coming on the premises.Mice amused him, but he usually considered them too small game to be taken seriously; I have seen him play for an hour with a mouse, and then let him go with a royal condescension.In this whole, matter of "getting a living," Calvin was a great contrast to the rapacity of the age in which he lived.