Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-08-13
Frank BuckianG'S Youth.

Sent to school at Winchester at the
age of II, Frank Buckland's individual
ity Immediately asserted itself. even as
one of the smallest of the boys He
took his share of the funding and
other traditional forms of bullying with
a pluck and good nature which went
far toward disarming school tyranny.
But it was soon discovered besides that
the eccentric little fellow had practical
talents of no ordinary value. Turning
his knowledge of earth-stopping in
fox-hunting to account, for one of his
uncles was master of pack of hounds,
there was no one like Buckland for
tracking mice in their burrows. He
could not only catch the game but he
turned his attention to cooking it, and
roast field mice, eaten Ia sauce of
the sea air on the Hampshire downs,
was soon popular plat. Then he came
to be regarded with mingled regard
and apprehension by the old waterman
who mounted guard over the river.
For 30 one could snare trout like
little auckland, and the watcher knew
that the little bright-eyed boy had al
ways moose up his sleeve. Writing
the enthusiasm of connoisseur, he
says, 1.-The wires | used were the finest
pianoforte wire, and there is great art
in making the moose and passing it
| over the trout's head.
But, in fact, Master auckland was
one of those exceedingly bad boys who
often prove a credit to their parents
and their upbringing III after life, but
who are apt to be held up as ''warn-
ings" in two-penny tractlets if they
chance to die young. He hunted rats,
turned down in a high-Walled yard,
sticks or stones being forbidden to
''the hounds" who were boys. He
trapped the rocks from the Winchester
close in cones of brown paper, baited
with cheese and smeared with bird
lime. He confesSes to partiality for
wiring cats. At the same time, had he
been put on his defense he might have
indicated his sports by pleading that
they were carried on in the interest of
science. We can not help fancying
that lie must have been the veritable
prototype of Martin, 1.-THE Old Mad
man." in tom Browns School-Days. -
He must often have been an intolerable
nuisance to the companions in his dor
mitory, and nothing but his popularity
could have pulled him through. Lat
terly, after a serious of explosions and
compromises, he became Il celebrity
they were proud of, as the anatomical
museum at the head of his bed was one
of the recognized show-places of school.
He skinned his slaughtered cats, carry
ing the remains away for leisurely dis
section, and concealing them in box
beneath his bed. He would bury away
other beasts till the flesh fell from the
bones, and it became comparatively
''easy to articulate the skeletons. His
enthusiasm even sent him to haunt the
anatomical hospitals, whence 'tgrue-
some fragments of humanity were con-
veyed secretly home, and as secretly
dissected. He came to scrutinize his
schoolfellows with professional eye.
One R, a boy with a dolicephalous
head, used to relate with a slight SILVER
thathe had overheard Buckland mutter-
ing to himself: ''What wouldn't |
give for that fellows skullw That re-
minds us of the grim resolution with
which, amid foul stenches and cada-
verous surroundings, he pursued his
successful search for DIR. Hunter cot
fin in the charnal vaults beneath St.
Martins church. 1t is pleasanter to
turn to the brighter side of the picture,
when, like the 'sOld Madman' of Rug
by, he would lead little party on a
natural-history ramble through the
fields. SIT was rare treat" writes
one of his schoolfellows, 'to walk with
him in the beautiful meadows of the
Itchen, into which, on summer even
ings, the bounds of school imprison-
ment were extended. He knew every
bird in the hedges, every snake, shrew,
or water-rat i'll the banks, every eel or
cray-ish in the pleasant streams. D
London Times.