him as a boy.

His father was in poor circumstances. He was an upright man of refined
tastes, but indolent--a failure in business, easy with the world and
stern with his family. He had never taken an interest in his son's
wildwood pursuits; and when he got the idea that they might interfere
with the boy's education, he forbade them altogether.

There was certainly no reason to accuse Yan of neglecting school. He
was the head boy of his class, although there were many in it older
than himself. He was fond of books in general, but those that dealt
with Natural Science and Indian craft were very close to his heart.
Not that he had many--there were very few in those days, and the
Public Library had but a poor representation of these. "Lloyd's
Scandinavian Sports," "Gray's Botany" and one or two Fenimore Cooper
novels, these were all, and Yan was devoted to them. He was a timid,
obedient boy in most things, but the unwise command to give up what
was his nature merely made him a disobedient boy--turned a good boy
into a bad one. He was too much in terror of his father to disobey
openly, but he used to sneak away at all opportunities to the fields
and woods, and at each new bird or plant he found he had an exquisite
thrill of mingled pleasure and pain--the pain because he had no name
for it or means of learning its nature.

The intense interest in animals was his master passion, and thanks to
this, his course to and from school was a very crooked one, involving
many crossings of the street, because thereby he could pass first a
saloon in whose window was a champagne advertising chromo that
portrayed two Terriers chasing a Rat; next, directly opposite this,
was a tobacconist's, in the window of which was a beautiful effigy of
an Elephant, laden with tobacco. By going a little farther out of his
way, there was a game store where he might see some Ducks, and was
sure, at least, of a stuffed Deer's head; and beyond that was a
furrier shop, with an astonishing stuffed Bear. At another point he
could see a livery stable Dog that was said to have killed a Coon, and
at yet another place on Jervie Street was a cottage with a high
veranda, under which, he was told, a chained Bear had once been kept.
He never saw the Bear. It had been gone for years, but he found
pleasure in passing the place. At the corner of Pemberton and Grand
streets, according to a schoolboy tradition, a Skunk had been killed
years ago and could still be smelled