ttend to one of us easily. But
both of us together made a pretty good match for him. Consequently we
hunted in couples, as it were. Charles was unduly sensitive about his
Christian name. I think he called it his unchristian name. Not the
"Charles" part of it, that was all right, but his parents had
inconsiderately saddled him with the hopeless additional name of Peter
Van Buskirk Smith! All we had to do to bring about a fight was to
approach him and address him as "Peter Van Buskirk." He bitterly
resented it, which was most unreasonable of him. I recall times when
the three of us struggled in the haymow for hours at a time, Peter Van
Buskirk, furiously angry, striving to force an apology or retraction,
and Henry and I having a glorious time refusing him.

We were safe enough while we were together, but when he caught us
alone--O my! I can remember it yet. He was always Charles, at that
time, but it was of no use. Yet notwithstanding the absolute certainty
of a severe thrashing when he caught us singly, we never could refrain
from calling him "Peter Van Buskirk" when we were together.

Why is it that parents are so thoughtless about the naming of their
children? I knew a boy once named Elijah Draco and there was another
lad of my acquaintance who struggled under the name of Lord Byron.
That wasn't so bad, because we shortened it to "By," but "Elijah Draco"
was hopeless, so we called him "Tommy," as a rebuke to his unfeeling
parents.

Charles Peter Van Buskirk was a funny boy. He was as brave as a lion.
You could pick him up by the ears, which were long--and shall I say
handy?--and he never would howl. We knew that was the way to tell a
good dog. "Pick him up by the ears; an' if he howls, he'll be no
fighter!" And we thought what was a good test for a dog could not be
amiss for a boy.

He had a dog once, sold to him for a quarter when it was a pup by a
specious individual of the tramp variety, as one of the finest
"King-Newf'un'lan'--Bull Breed." His appetite and his vices were in
proportion to his descriptions, but he had no virtues that we could
discover. With a boy's lack of inventiveness we called him "Tiger"
although anything less ferocious than he would be hard to find. He was
more like a sheep in spirit than anything else. But Charles thought he
saw signs of promise in that pup, and in spite of our disparaging
remarks he clung to him. Charles knew a lot about dogs, or thought he
did, which