The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | Page 4

I was sent to school. I
couldn't imagine what the doctor, a tall, severe-looking man in black,
was doing to my brother, but as mother, who was holding him in her
arms, offered no objection, I looked on quietly while he scratched the
arm until I saw blood. Then, unable to trust even my mother, I managed
to spring up high enough to grab and bite the doctor's arm, yelling that I
wasna gan to let him hurt my bonnie brither, while to my utter
astonishment mother and the doctor only laughed at me. So far from
complete at times is sympathy between parents and children, and so
much like wild beasts are baby boys, little fighting, biting, climbing
pagans.
Father was proud of his garden and seemed always to be trying to make
it as much like Eden as possible, and in a corner of it he gave each of us
a little bit of ground for our very own in which we planted what we
best liked, wondering how the hard dry seeds could change into soft

leaves and flowers and find their way out to the light; and, to see how
they were coming on, we used to dig up the larger ones, such as peas
and beans, every day. My aunt had a corner assigned to her in our
garden which she filled with lilies, and we all looked with the utmost
respect and admiration at that precious lily-bed and wondered whether
when we grew up we should ever be rich enough to own one anything
like so grand. We imagined that each lily was worth an enormous sum
of money and never dared to touch a single leaf or petal of them. We
really stood in awe of them. Far, far was I then from the wild lily
gardens of California that I was destined to see in their glory.
When I was a little boy at Mungo Siddons's school a flower-show was
held in Dunbar, and I saw a number of the exhibitors carrying large
handfuls of dahlias, the first I had ever seen. I thought them marvelous
in size and beauty and, as in the case of my aunt's lilies, wondered if I
should ever be rich enough to own some of them.
Although I never dared to touch my aunt's sacred lilies, I have good
cause to remember stealing some common flowers from an apothecary,
Peter Lawson, who also answered the purpose of a regular physician to
most of the poor people of the town and adjacent country. He had a
pony which was considered very wild and dangerous, and when he was
called out of town he mounted this wonderful beast, which, after
standing long in the stable, was frisky and boisterous, and often to our
delight reared and jumped and danced about from side to side of the
street before he could be persuaded to go ahead. We boys gazed in
awful admiration and wondered how the druggist could be so brave and
able as to get on and stay on that wild beast's back. This famous Peter
loved and when she anxiously took me in her arms and inquired what
was the matter, I told her that I had swallowed my tongue. She only
laughed at me, much to my astonishment, when I expected that she
would bewail the awful loss her boy had sustained. My sisters, who
were older than I, oftentimes said when I happened to be talking too
much, "It's a pity you hadn't swallowed at least half of that long tongue
of yours when you were little."
It appears natural for children to be fond of water, although the Scotch

method of making every duty dismal contrived to make necessary
bathing for health terrible to us. I well remember among the awful
experiences of childhood being taken by the servant to the seashore
when I was between two and three years old, stripped at the side of a
deep pool in the rocks, plunged into it among crawling crawfish and
slippery wriggling snake-like eels, and drawn up gasping and shrieking
only to be plunged down again and again. As the time approached for
this terrible bathing, I used to hide in the flowers and had a fine garden
surrounded by an iron fence, through the bars of which, when I thought
no one saw me, I oftentimes snatched a flower and took to my heels.
One day Peter discovered me in this mischief, dashed out into the street
and caught me. I screamed that I wouldna steal any more if he would
let me go. He didn't say anything but just dragged me along to the
stable where he kept the wild pony, pushed me in right back of its heels,
and shut the door. I was