hen it was
pulled out, like an accordion, displayed not a dove merely, but a plain
gold ring--a real ring, made of real gold. Nothing like it had ever been
seen before in all Dutchess County; and it was seen and envied by every
girl of Zillah's age between Rhinebeck and Tivoli, between Barrytown and
Pine Plains.

The Boy did an extensive business in the valentine line, in the days
when February Fourteenth meant much more to boys than it does now. He
sent sentimental valentines to Phoebe Hawkins and comic valentines to
Ann Hughes, both of them written anonymously, and both directed in a
disguised hand. But both recipients always knew from whom they came;
and, in all probability, neither of them was much affected by the
receipt. The Boy, as he has put on record elsewhere, never really, in
his inmost heart, thought that comic valentines were so very comic,
because those that came to him usually reflected upon his nose, or were
illuminated with portraits of gentlemen of all ages adorned with
supernaturally red hair.

In later years, when Bob and The Boy could swim--a little--and had
learned to take care of themselves in water over their heads, the
mill-pond at Red Hook played an important part in their daily life
there. They sailed it, and fished it, and camped out on its banks, with
Ed Curtis--before Ed went to West Point--and with Dick Hawley, Josie
Briggs, and Frank Rodgers, all first-rate fellows. But that is another
story.

The Boy was asked, a year or two ago, to write a paper upon "The Books
of his Boyhood." And when he came to think the matter over he
discovered, to his surprise, that the Books of his Boyhood consisted of
but one book! It was bound in two twelvemo green cloth volumes; it bore
the date of 1850, and it was filled with pictorial illustrations of "The
Personal History and Experiences of David Copperfield, the Younger." It
was the first book The Boy ever read, and he thought then, and
sometimes he thinks now, that it was the greatest book ever written.
The traditional books of the childhood of other children came later to
The Boy: "Robinson Crusoe," and the celebrated "Swiss Family" of the
same name; "The Desert Home," of Mayne Reid; Marryat's "Peter Simple";
"The Leather Stocking Tales"; "Rob Roy"; and "The Three Guardsmen" were
well thumbed and well liked; but they were not The Boy's first love in
fiction, and they never usurped, in his affections, the place of the
true account of David Copperfield