A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs

He does not remember what was done to his uncle. But the uncle was for half a century The Boy's best and most faithful of friends. And The Boy forgave him long, long ago.

The Boy's first act of self-reliance and of conscious self-dependence was a very happy moment in his young life; and it consisted in his being able to step over the nursery fender, all alone, and to toast his own shins thereby, without falling into the fire. His first realization of "getting big" came to him about the same time, and with a mingled shock of pain and pleasure, when he discovered that he could not walk under the high kitchen-table without bumping his head. He tried i