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!
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
