| THE FIRST objects that assume a distinct presence before me, as I look far back, into the blank of my infancy, are my mother with her pretty red fur and youthful shape. |
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| I believe I can remember this at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by lying or rolling on the floor. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of my mother's paws as I went around her from behind. |
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| This may be fancy, though I think the memory of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the power of observation of squirrels in very young puppies may be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that most grown dogs who are remarkable in this respect, may with greater propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired it; the rather, as I generally observe such dogs to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their puppyhood. |
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| I might have a misgiving that I am “meandering” in stopping to say this, but that it brings me to remark that I build these conclusions, in part upon my own experience of myself; and if it should appear from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a puppy of close observation, or that as a grown red dog I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics. |
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