perusal of the history of that engaging fraud, and
inducted him into a spare rat-trap set about closely with wires. A
horsehair sparrow's nest was lined with raw cotton and put in one
corner, a toy saucer of water in the other, and in the third a toy plate
filled with cracked hickory nuts, interspersed with bits of sugar. Then
I sat down upon the floor beside him, and began the business of taming
him by getting him used to seeing me, cultivating his acquaintance by
poking my finger between the bars, talking and singing to him, and
endeavoring, by other ingenious devices, to make him feel at home. He
scampered around the confines of his domicile, as in a treadmill, all
the time I was thus employed, and could not be induced to touch his
food.

Mary 'Liza and I had outgrown the trundle-bed, and had a room to
ourselves upstairs. Into this I surreptitiously conveyed the improvised
cage that night and hid it under the bed. When my bedfellow had fallen
asleep, I got up softly, lighted a candle, and took a peep at my pet. He
had gone regularly to bed after disposing of some of the nuts and
scattering the remnants in every direction, and now lay curled up in the
cotton-wool in the prettiest, most homelike way imaginable, fast asleep.

I hung over him, entranced. He was tamed! Before long he would be
following me all over the house, playing hide-and-seek in corners,
sitting upon his hind legs beside my plate at table, and nibbling such
tidbits as I might give him. One particularly bright picture of our
common future was of taking him to church, smuggling him into the pocket
of my Sunday frock, and after settling myself comfortably upon my knees
before a corner seat during the "long prayer," taking Caspar Hauser out
and letting him play on the bench. What a boon his society would
be--what a relief his antics while Mr. Lee droned through innumerable
"We pray Thees!"

After I went back to bed I pursued these and other enchanting visions
into dreamland. The next day I took Caspar Hauser into the garden for
air and sunshine. His liveliness was something inconceivable by the
human imagination. He chased himself frantically around the cage,
regardless of my tender exhortations, until I began to fear that taming
was a more tedious process than I had supposed. I set the cage upon the
grass where the sun was hottest, withdrawing myself into the shade as
less in need of light and warmth, and read a volume of Berquin's
_Children's Friend_