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; I don'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.

I hesitate a little to speak of his capacity for friendship and the
affectionateness of his nature, for I know from his own reserve that
he would not care to have it much talked about. We understood each
other perfectly, but we never made any fuss about it; when I spoke
his name and snapped my fingers, he came to me; when I returned home
at night, he was pretty sure to be waiting for me near the gate, and
would rise and saunter along the walk, as if his being there were
purely accidental,--so shy was he commonly of showing feeling; and
when I opened the door, he never rushed in, like a cat, but loitered,
and lounged, as if he had no intention of going in, but would
condescend to. And yet, the fact was, he knew dinner was ready, and
he was bound to be there. He kept the run of dinner-time. It
happened sometimes, during our absence in the summer, that dinner
would be early, and Calvin, walking about the grounds, missed it and
came in late. But he never made a mistake the second day. There was
one thing he never did,--he never rushed through an open doorway. He