We have wandered far afield—even from fairyland to folk-song and our excuse for linking the genius of a Drake and Halleck with patriotic airs and the song of Dan Emmett is, that all have presented to our literature some of its single, striking inspirations.

XVI

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)

WHITTIER-LAND nestles in the valley of the Merrimac, from the granite hills, to where "the lower river" seeks the ocean at Newburyport; and on "its broad, smooth current," Haverhill

"overlooks on either hand

A rich and many watered land."

Three miles beyond this hill-city, a little back from the highway, stands the primitive Whittier homestead, hardly altered from the olden day. In it is shown the room where, on December seventeenth, 1807, the "Quaker-Poet" first saw the light. The mother's bedroom remains with linen and blankets woven by her own hand.

The great fireplace in the kitchen is almost as large as a modern kitchenette. In this swings "the crane and pendent trammels," and never has New England kitchen been so hallowed by poetic touch. For it was in this "old, rude-furnished room," many years after Whittier had left his early home, that he stretched "The hands of memory forth" and gathered the household; and as the firelight illumined their faces, he threw upon the screen the

picture of the family group, and this he presented to the world in "Snow-Bound," a perfect poem of New England winter life.

Let us glance at the picture. Here is the father, Prompt, decisive man "; the mother rehearsing

"The story of her early days;"

Aunt Mercy

"The sweetest woman ever Fate

Perverse denied a household mate";

and story-telling Uncle Moses, who though

innocent of books,

Was rich in lore of field and brooks."

And among the other faces is that of the older sister who has learned "The secret of self-sacrifice"; and of the "youngest" and "dearest," who

Against the household bosom lean."

The picture is as realistic in word as the Dutch artist could have painted it with his brush - and it has transformed the Haverhill kitchen into a pilgrim's shrine.

Lingering outside the homestead, many poems are recalled. Here was laid the scene of "Telling the Bees "; the bridle-post; the well with its long sweep;

the brook; the stone-wall upon which once sat a "Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!" Near by is the meadow where Maud Muller met the judge; a - short distance up a narrow road stands the cottage where Lydia Ayer, the heroine of "In School-days," lived her brief life of seventeen years. Here are treasured her school-books, and each is inscribed in tiny, faded writing: "Lydia Ayer - her book."

Across, the road, beyond the Whittier elm, a tablet marks the site of "the school-house by the road,” and

"Around it still the sumachs grow,

And blackberry-vines are running."

Local tradition has it that John and Lydia always walked to school together; and we do know that forty years later, John tenderly remembered the sweet child-face" of the little maiden who hated "to go above" him.

The literary elements associated with Whittier's childhood home, apart from the district-school, were very few. There were the Bible and "Pilgrim's Progress," and some other saintly books, and the Quaker-meeting. But something interesting happened when the lad was fourteen- the kind of thing that often happens to a youthful genius and changes the whole current of life a copy of Burns's poems fell into his hands. He read and re-read un

til the "Ayrshire Ploughman," who could weave a poem from a "tiny field mousie," or a " Wee modest crimson-tipped flower," had cast, by the magic of his lyric song, a spell over the rugged farmer ladfor he even sung into his heart the art of transfiguring daily life.

And as the boy worked on, and carried his lessons and scribbled away, a new spirit was in him- and his own song burst forth - and the early twitter was pleasant to hear on the dreary New England coast; and the song grew louder and more insistent, for he kept on singing for sixty years, and sometimes he has even been honoured by being called "The Burns of New England."

And when he was seventeen, another thing happened. One day when he was helping his father mend the fence, the postman as he rode past tossed over the newspaper. Whittier opened it and discovered one of his own poems in print. He stared again and again at the lines, but for joy and surprise could not read a word. The practical father, seeing him idle, told him to put up the paper and go on with

his work.

His sister, it appears, had been his first literary agent, and unknown to him, had sent the manuscript to William Lloyd Garrison, editor of "The Newburyport Free Press." We linger over these happenings because they were big with import.

A little later, Mr. Garrison, having received more