When Rich returned, shortly after the commencement of the summer term, he was joyfully welcomed by his pupils. In the course of ten days he received a box by the stage, of quite modest proportions, that was instantly transferred to the harness-room, and respecting the reception of which Rich seemed very much interested, having been several times to the stage tavern to inquire about it.
This box contained all the bones of the human frame; and no wonder that Rich was concerned about their arrival, considering his intense interest in the study of anatomy, and furthermore, the low state of his funds, and that they cost him but five dollars.
It was customary for the lecturer to procure subjects for dissection (in what way was best known to himself), for any students who wished this opportunity of private study and dissection, at twenty dollars apiece. Rich clubbed with three more and bought one. After they had dissected and made a study of the different parts in which each felt most specially interested, the bones remained. To secure and put these together properly, so as to form an entire and perfect skeleton, repairing the damages made by the dissecting saw on the skull, to get at the brain, was a great deal of work, and required not only anatomical knowledge, but great patience and no small degree of mechanical skill; and the other students, who were able to purchase skeletons already prepared, and possessed neither the patience nor mechanical ability to perform the work, and, moreover, liked Rich, gave him their portion of the bones.
To prepare, classify, and wire them together was a most congenial as well as profitable occupation to Rich; it fixed the arrangement, names, and shape of the bones and articulations in his mind, and also gratified his mechanical tastes; and he in the course of the summer accomplished the work, during the performance of which his practice in working iron stood him in good stead, as he replaced the spinal marrow by an iron rod, cut a thread on each end, and made thumb-nuts with which to confine the vertebral column.
The fact of his having attended medical lectures at Brunswick, coupled with his previous success in some cases of minor importance, increased very much the confidence of people in general touching his ability as a physician, and he had numerous calls, to all of which he turned a deaf ear, devoting himself entirely to his scholars and studies.
At length circumstances concurred to place him in a position of great perplexity, and one where he was, as it were, compelled to assume a responsibility from which he would gladly have been excused. Dan Clemens, Frank Merrill, and Horace Williams had natural history, in the form of ornithology, "on the brain." If these youngsters didn't sit on eggs, they dreamed of them. It would be difficult to mention anything they would not do for Rich when the remuneration was a rare bird, shot and stuffed.
To be soaked to the skin, and so tired they could scarcely put one foot before the other, were pastimes when birds were ahead; and to obtain eggs they would venture life and limb. The fatigue of soldiers on a forced march was trifling in comparison with what they cheerfully endured; and their mothers, during the spring and summer months, were in a state of chronic anxiety, expecting nothing less than their being brought home with broken bones.
One Saturday afternoon they were all in swimming with a crowd of boys who took not the least interest in their favorite study; but one of them, while undressing under a leafy elm, at whose roots the boys were accustomed to put their clothes, espied the nest of a Baltimore oriole, and told Dan, who was in the water with Frank and Horace. They instantly dressed, and began to look with longing eyes at the nest that was pendent from the extremity of a slender branch near the top of the tree, and on its southern side.
"We can't get that nest," said Horace, "for we can't climb the tree, it's so far to a limb. If we could climb it, the limbs won't bear a fellow to reach the nest."
"Yes, we can," said Dan; "we must have those eggs. You give me a boost. I'll bet I can climb it."