THE KILLING OF MARMION 



least brought me to the full consciousness that 1 

 was a Brahmin. He attached himself to us with 

 such a confiding gentleness, and sat round with 

 such a helpless and appealing dependency, that 

 we admitted him to the entourage quite as a matter 

 of course. Then, too, I was put to it by Charlie 

 to draw on all my rusty stock of natural history 

 to explain hibernation and rake up the old myths 

 of the Farmers Almanac about the marmot s 

 weather prognostications, especially his immemo 

 rial habit of coming out in the spring to look for 

 his shadow ; and I discovered how deeply inter 

 ested, beyond all else, boys are in animals, most 

 of them preferring the menagerie to the circus 

 before they are sophisticated, and all of them 

 caring more for a dog than for the Decalogue. 



In thinking the matter over, I arrived at the 

 conclusion that it was on account of Charlie that 

 the beasts of the field became so familiar. I 

 framed a comfortable theory that there was a 

 millennial link between childhood and the whole 

 animal kingdom. No sooner had this fancy 

 taken firm root than it began to throw out an 

 other, which was that childhood, thus extending 

 a hand downward to the dumb up-looking origins 

 of life, might extend another upward toward the 

 serene Beyond to which all life was tending. It 

 was in this way that our isolation and sweet com 

 panionship stirred some unsuspected and medici 

 nal forces in my own tired heart, as if a harassed 

 and strained man could climb back into the cradle 

 of life and hear the original lullaby. 



43 



