Friskey was a short-haired Irish terrier, with an expressive stump of a tail; Fanny and Lion were big Newfoundlands, and Brownie was the great St. Bernard, bred at the famous Hospice and educated at a Swiss dog school. These are the Green Peace dogs I best remember. Brownie was not of this time, but of many years later; I speak of him now, lest I forget. He was the handsomest, best, most intelligent dog I ever knew. Compared to other dogs, he was what a highly polished university man is to a rough day laborer. Brownie was a hero, too; he saved the life of Honey-pot—but that’s another story.
In the cow barn lived the red cow and her calf. She was a famous milker, giving her sixteen quarts regularly. In the stable there were horses. Papa rode like a centaur. To see him mounted on his black mare Breeze, cantering along Bird Lane, was a revelation of grace and skill I have yet to see surpassed by Bedouin of the desert or Hyde Park dandy.
My little brother is closely linked with these memories of Green Peace. Can I remember it, or do I remember my mother’s telling me of this conversation between her and me?
“Mama, I am sorry you are so old!”
“Why, darling?”
“Because you cannot play with me!”
This was just before little Sam’s birth, when she, nimblest of playfellows, was weary with carrying her precious burthen:
“The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break and April bloom.”
His little life, four short years, has been told by his mother in what I believe to be a unique biography. He was a large handsome boy, full of vitality and charm. His death of diphtheritic croup, at the age of four, brought a desolation to our house, which, after all these years, I recall as if it had lately happened. My clearest memory of him is lying surrounded by flowers, a beautiful little marble figure, with lovely, half-closed violet eyes. A portrait preserves this last look. It always hung, framed by a wreath of thorns, in his mother’s room. There is frequent mention of him in her diary; until the end of her long life, she saw him in her dreams. Her poems show the closeness of the bond between her and—
The love that never leaves me,
The child that never grieves me.