I was especially impressed with this view of the case when I went to toot
them in from those free and reckless diversions in, which their souls
expanded and their bodies became as the winged creatures of the earth.
The horn was still an object of terror to me, though experience had made
me wise enough to institute, on all occasions, a careful preliminary
search for buttons.
Its blast, freighted with baleful meaning to the ears of sportive
innocence, found a melancholy echo among the deeper woes of my own heart,
and, if it chanced to be one of Aunt Lobelia's singing days, the "Dar' to
be a Dan-yell! Dar' to be a Dan-yell!" which floated across the lane, had
but a doubtfully inspiriting effect.
I felt, indeed, like a Daniel doomed to convocate my own lions, and
lacking that faith in a preserving Providence which is believed to have
cheered and elevated the spirit of the ancient prophet, I confidently
expected, on the whole, to be devoured.
Gathered into their den, my lively herd gasped some moments as though
suffering the last loud agony of expiring breath, and then, bethinking
them of that only one of their free and native elements now obtainable,
they sent up a universal cry for "water!"
Ah! what to do with them through the long hours of the day--beautiful
creatures! by no means unlovable, with their bright, clear eyes, their
restless, restless feet, their overflowing spirits; their bodies all
alive, but with minds unfitted by birth, unskilled by domestic
discipline, to any sort of earnest and prolonged effort.
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