ey were in the river.

There were some people who did not believe in the professor, or the boys
either. One of these people was an officer of the army who was staying a
while in the Boy's Town, and perhaps had something to do with
recruiting troops for the Mexican War. He came to the lecture one
night, and remained with others who lingered after it was over to speak
with the professor. My boy was there with his father, and it seemed to
him that the officer smiled mockingly at the professor; angry words
passed, and then the officer struck out at the professor. In an instant
the professor put up both his fists; they flashed towards the officer's
forehead, and the officer tumbled backwards. The boy could hardly
believe it had happened. It seemed unreal, and of the dreamlike quality
that so many facts in a child's bewildered life are of.

There were very few places of amusement or entertainment in the Boy's
Town that were within a boy's reach. There were at least a dozen places
where a man could get whiskey, but only one where he could get
ice-cream, and the boys were mostly too poor and too shy to visit this
resort. But there used to be a pleasure-garden on the outskirts of the
town, which my boy remembered visiting when he was a very little fellow,
with his brother. There were two large old mulberry-trees in this
garden, and one bore white mulberries and the other black mulberries,
and when you had paid your fip to come in, you could eat all the
mulberries you wanted, for nothing. There was a tame crow that my boy
understood could talk if it liked; but it only ran after him, and tried
to bite his legs. Besides this attraction, there was a labyrinth, or
puzzle, as the boys called it, of paths that wound in and out among
bushes, so that when you got inside you were lucky if you could find
your way out. My boy, though he had hold of his brother's hand, did not
expect to get out; he expected to perish in that labyrinth, and he had
some notion that his end would be hastened by the tame crow. His first
visit to the pleasure-garden was his last; and it passed so wholly out
of his consciousness that he never knew what became of it any more than
if it had been taken up into the clouds.

He tasted ice-cream there for the first time, and had his doubts about
it, though a sherry-glass full of it cost a fip, and it ought to have
been good for such a sum as that. Later in life, he sometimes went to
the saloon where it was sold in the