I need hardly tell you that Snowdrop was never sold again. He lived with Nannie till she was a woman, and he a very venerable sheep; and then he died a peaceful death, and was buried in the garden, and real snowdrops grew over his grave.
[My First day in Trowsers.]
"Love was once a little boy," the old song says, and so was I; though I cannot flatter myself that beyond this there is any point of resemblance between Love and me,—stay, there is one strong one—I was extravagantly fond of shooting with a bow and arrow, and we all know that Love does nothing else but travel about shooting his little arrows into folks' hearts. I never shot anything but bull-frogs.
But I haven't got to my "trowsers" yet, have I? I don't see what made me think about Love here, for if poets and painters tell the truth, he never knew anything about trowsers—at least, he never had any.
I had toddled patiently through nearly four years of that period in the life of boys when there is little in their dress to distinguish them from girls, and which period is therefore a most aggravating memory to boys in general, when my mother astounded and delighted me one morning by the announcement that I was to have a pair of trowsers—that they were even then almost finished. What a whirl my little head was in all that day, to be sure! How my incipient manhood swelled and swaggered, impatient of the trammels of frocks and pantalettes! What dreams I had that night!
The next morning the trowsers came home, and had they been the jewelled robes in which I was to be proclaimed emperor of half the world, I could scarcely have looked upon them with more pleasure and pride— simple little India-nankeen trowsers, as they were, with buttons of pearl, and white embroidery of linen braid.
It was a bright morning in early June, and my mother decided that I might have them on at once. Oh, the pride of that day! What a space of time seemed to stretch between it and the yesterday! From what an airy height of scorn did I look down upon the whole race of frocks—even that one of crimson and black which only twenty-four short hours before, it had been the topmost delight of my little heart to be allowed to wear!
I was passed from hand to hand throughout the household—receiving admiring criticisms, and growing prouder and prouder; particularly when old Wangie, the cook, who was chief among my friends, exclaimed—"Bress de chile, he look grand as a king!"