He won all
hearts; the chickens and ducks were devotedly attached to him; the cow,
which the family always intended to buy, was in the habit of licking
Phelim in his dreams; the two goats which they actually did buy, treated
him like I one of themselves. Among the first and last he spent a great
deal of his early life; for as the floor of his father's house was but
a continuation of the dunghill, or the dunghill a continuation of the
floor, we know not rightly which, he had a larger scope, and a more
unsavory pool than usual, for amusement. Their dunghill, indeed, was the
finest of it size and kind to be seen; quite a tasteful thing, and so
convenient, that he could lay himself down at the hearth, and roll
out to its foot, after which he ascended it on his legs, with all the
elasticity of a young poet triumphantly climbing Parnassus.
One of the greatest wants which Phelim experienced in his young days,
was the want of a capacious pocket. We insinuate nothing; because with
respect to his agility in climbing fruit-trees, it was only a species of
exercise to which he was addicted--the eating and carrying away of the
fruit being merely incidental, or, probably, the result of abstraction,
which, as every one knows, proves what is termed "the Absence of
Genius." In these ambitious exploits, however, there is no denying that
he bitterly regretted the want of a pocket; and in connection with this
we have only to add, that most of his solitary walks were taken about
orchards and gardens, the contents of which he has been often seen to
contemplate with deep interest.
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