one thing in him more noticeable than another, it was his fondness for nature.  He could content himself for hours at a low window, looking into the ravine and at the great trees, noting the smallest stir there; he delighted, above all things, to accompany me walking about the garden, hearing the birds, getting the smell of the fresh earth, and rejoicing in the sunshine.  He followed me and gamboled like a dog, rolling over on the turf and exhibiting his delight in a hundred ways.  If I worked, he sat and watched me, or looked off over the bank, and kept his ear open to the twitter in the cherry-trees.  When it stormed, he was sure to sit at the window, keenly watching the rain or the snow, glancing up and down at its falling; and a winter tempest always delighted him.  I think he was genuinely fond of birds, but, so far as I know, he usually confined himself to one a day; he never killed, as some sportsmen do, for the sake of killing, but only as civilized people do,—­from necessity.  He was intimate with the flying-squirrels who dwell in the chestnut-trees,—­too intimate, for almost every day in the summer he would bring in one, until he nearly discouraged them.  He was, indeed, a superb hunter, and would have been a devastating one, if his bump of destructiveness had not been offset by a bump of moderation.  There was very little of the brutality of the lower animals about him; I don’t think he enjoyed rats for themselves, but he knew his business, and for the first few months of his residence with us he waged an awful campaign against the horde, and after that his simple presence was sufficient to deter them from coming on the premises.  Mice amused him, but he usually considered them too small game to be taken seriously; I have seen him play for an hour with a mouse, and then let him go with a royal condescension.  In this whole, matter of “getting a living,” Calvin was a great contrast to the rapacity of the age in which he lived.

I hesitate a little to speak of his capacity for friendship and the affectionateness of his nature, for I know from his own reserve that he would not care to have it much talked about.  We understood each other perfectly, but we never made any fuss about it; when I spoke his name and snapped my fingers, he came to me; when I returned home at night, he was pretty sure to be waiting for me near the gate, and would rise and saunter along the walk, as if his being there were purely accidental,—­so shy was he commonly of showing feeling; and when I opened the door, he never rushed in, like a cat, but loitered, and lounged, as if he had no intention of going in, but would condescend to.  And yet, the fact was, he knew dinner was ready, and he was bound to be there.  He kept the run of dinner-time.  It happened sometimes, during our absence in the summer, that dinner would be early, and Calvin, walking about the grounds, missed it and came in late.  But he never made a mistake the second day.  There was one thing he never did,—­he never rushed through an open doorway.  He never forgot his dignity.  If he had asked to have the door opened, and was eager to go out, he always went deliberately; I can see him now standing on the sill, looking about at the sky as if he was thinking whether it were worth while to take an umbrella, until he was near having his tail shut in.