r. Dole and I were standing in front of one of the caves which are found near the edges of the bay of Hanauma which is situated this side of Koko Head. We were there for several days of recreation. Mr. Dole was glad to get away from the Executive building, where his Ministers had caged various bees in their bonnets. These bees often wrangled with the bees in his own bonnet, and by temporarily separating them, the different bees ameliorated their buzzing, and a general rest prevailed. Mr. Dole said he preferred to take recreation with one who had outgrown the bee-hive age and the age of other annoying human devices.
"Do you see that flat stone?" I asked, pointing to one that lay under some lantana bushes, and was partially concealed by the sand and just beyond the reach of the surf.
"I see it," said Mr. Dole. "Do you think that some person with a bee in his bonnet has been around? Has the stone a story?"
"Well," I said, "that stone belonged to the foundation of a house which Peleg Chapman built away back in the 'thirties.'"
"Tell me the story," said Mr. Dole and he sat down on the grass, as if it were his Cabinet, and stretched his legs out towards the much sounding sea.
I then told him the story as I had obtained it from the most authentic sources, included in which were some scraps in Peleg Chapman's handwriting.
Peleg's father, Silas Chapman, was a poor but honest farmer who lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, near the State line. He had been eminently successful in achieving poverty, which he shared generously with his wife and sons. Though mentally dull in most matters, he possessed a rare gift for training animals of all kinds. He was a master of those inarticulate sounds, and musical notes which curiously convey ideas to animals. He talked with his dogs and cats, and made them useful. His trained squirrels brought him abundance of nuts, and his trained robins brought him cherries without injuring them. His cows, pigs, and chickens did curious tricks, and when gathered together in the barnyard, under his voice and eye, were more orderly than the General Assembly of the State. These useful animals did much to relieve the family poverty. The collie dogs stole watermelons and rolled them home, and the tame crows supplied the cattle with ripe corn from the neighbors' fields.
Peleg inherited from his father this singular gift of training animals, and he had listened to his luminous expositions of the subject.
"Peleg," he said, "all an'mals think. Ef you only larn how they think, you ken do anything with 'em. Each on 'em has a little different way of working his gumption, but you kinder sit along side 'on 'em, get to communin' with 'em in a slow fashion, and you'l find 'em ekal to human critters."
Peleg in due time became more skillful than his father, in training animals. He caught a young eagle over in Lenox, and trained him to relieve the family poverty by stealing chickens over in York State. The eagle was not morally very strong, and often brought home the tough roosters, after eating the tender chickens.