Part 6

Fortunately, my familiarity with the camera had made me desire to make some photographs of Scraggles some three weeks before her death. My daughter and I made several, and then a friend came and made two or three others, so that now we feel really blessed in possessing these counterfeit presentments of the little creature.

When our friends saw these photographs they desired copies of them; and when, after the publication of “In and Out of the Old Missions,” strangers began to write both to my publishers and myself for “further particulars about Scraggles,” I felt that I ought to give to others some of the joy and delight and benefit I and mine had in our intercourse with her.

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Dear little Scraggles! I little thought when I first saw you struggling to get away from me, as if afraid I might devour you, that we should so soon become such inseparable friends. It was a sudden impulse that led me to pick you up and take you home, and though the loving hearts there welcomed you, they realized better than I did the trouble you would be. But somehow that did not deter us from making you one of us, and you soon recognized the relationship. Our association was short, as men reckon time, but time really has very little to do with life.

“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives, Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”

So in the short three months you were with me we lived your lifetime together; and though my life is stretching out into further time, and your body is buried, you, dear little Scraggles, still live on with me. I don’t know, and I care less, what the psychologists say about birds having souls, and I am equally indifferent as to what the theologians say of there being a heaven for birds, or birds entering the heaven of human beings. This I do know, that in my own soul, far more real than the demonstrable propositions of life, such as that two and two make four, is the certain assurance that my soul and Scraggles’ will meet when my body and soul are severed.

So sleep, content and serene, dear little Scraggles, in your tiny and flower-embowered resting-place. You know full well in your tiny, but love-filled heart that just so soon as I have met all the human loved ones in the soul-life, I shall seek for you, and seek until I find, for I shall want you even in heaven. My heaven will be incomplete without you. I believe absolutely with Browning, that

“There shall be no lost good, What was, shall live as before!”

So in the life of the future, with understanding and love made sweeter by clearer knowledge, we shall love on; for of all great things that abide forever “the greatest is love.”

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Books by George Wharton James

In and Out of the Old Missions of California

=An Historical and Pictorial Account of the Francescan Missions. With one hundred forty-two illustrations, including full-page plates, from photographs. 8vo. Cloth. $3.00 net.=

The present volume stands as the authority on the old missions of California. Indispensable as a guide-book, and is filled with most valuable material.--San Francisco Argonaut. The author has devoted careful study to the matter of architecture, and to the furniture and decorations of the historic and ancient structures; but, in addition to this, the work is made interesting by the relative matters that have a more human interest.--St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

The Wonders of the Colorado Desert

(Southern California)

=With more than three hundred pen and ink sketches from life by Carl Eytel. 8vo. Cloth. $4.00 net.=

Mr. James has given the first adequate description of one of the most fascinating regions of this country. The wonderful rivers, lofty mountains, deep canyons, varied life and history of the Colorado Desert in Southern California are vividly set forth, together with an account of a recent hazardous journey made down the overflow of the Colorado River to the mysterious Salton Sea. The pen and ink sketches by the artist are an important feature of this book.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON

Other Books by George Wharton James

In and Around the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona

=Illustrated with twenty-three full-page plates and seventy-seven pictures in the text. 8vo. Cloth. Price, $2.50=

The volume, crowded with pictures of the marvels and beauties of the Canyon, is of absorbing interest. Dramatic narratives of hairbreadth escapes and thrilling adventures, stories of Indians, their legends and customs, and Mr. James’s own perilous experiences, give a wonderful personal interest in these pages of graphic description of the most stupendous natural wonder on the American Continent.--Philadelphia Public Ledger.

The Indians of the Painted Desert Region

=With sixteen full-page pictures and fifty half-page illustrations from photographs. Crown 8vo. Decorated cloth. $2.00 net=

“Interesting as a fairy tale and valuable for its accuracy as well” (Literary News), and “a distinct and extremely interesting contribution to topographical and ethnological knowledge” (Buffalo Commercial), is this book by Professor James, in which he vividly describes the Navaho, Hopi, Wallapai, and Havasupai Indians of the Southwest. “The writer has made an intimate personal acquaintance with his subject and has grounded himself in the researches of others,” says the New York Tribune.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON