Whitman is eminently loved as a man. He keeps on gaining friends, and these friends are marked men. He has pleasant messages from Australia. A group of Lancashire disciples has just been discovered; one of the group has within a few months paid him a visit, made the photographs of house, street, room, and nurse used for this article, passed a night in the house in which Whitman was born, has visited Gilchrist at Centreport, Long Island, and Burroughs at West Park, on the Hudson and has since his return published an account of his novel pilgrimage.

The dinner given Whitman on his last birthday had remarkable features apart from Ingersoll's great speech, which Whitman thought the most powerful extempore utterance he had ever known. The later lecture by Ingersoll on Whitman was also significant. The utterance itself Whitman regards as in many respects the most significant in the stormy career of "Leaves of Grass." Symonds always addresses him as "Master," writing him the warmest letters. The host of his callers is great every day some. John Burroughs comes down once a year, in the fall, from his estate, to spend several days in Camden. Whitman's family are all more or less distant. He has a sister in Vermont, another on Long Island, a brother, George, at Burlington, New Jersey. His brother "Jeff," who recently died at St. Louis, was an engineer of note, dear to Whitman, who travelled with him in earlier years, of whom record may be found in "Specimen Days," and of whom Whitman has since his death written loving words for an engineering journal.

Whitmar has instinctive reverence for women, always addressing and approaching them with gentle courtesy. And women reciprocate the tender respect. No man is so loved of strong women. It is happiness to hear him talk of "the mothers of America," how our future is involved with their symmetrical development and high faith. His atmosphere breathes composure, power, sweetness, reverence, the background of all moral force. He rarely speaks of morality, yet is profoundly moral in all that he does

and says. He puts the brightest face on all he sees. His discussion of current events is strong and denunciatory — yet unfailing in its look forward.

He

Whitman is often spoken of as " queer” or "eccentric." He is neither, except in the sense that must always distinguish individuality. He delights in free speech, cleanliness, and purity. He has the clean instincts which prevail over and explain grossness and squalor, whether of life or speech - evil narrative or cheerless philosophy. He delights to tell and to hear stories. His sense of the humorous is strong. I know no great event to pass by him unnoticed. All the world's affairs are his affairs. loves the transactions of big conferences, of scientists, mechanics, laborers, engineers. He enjoys in this all that tends toward enlarging the scope of man's hope, anything that adds to the generosity of our national example, anything that in religion or society or politics is for breadth and solidarity. He disdains patriotism in the common sense looks to America to lead new ways, not to halt till all are ready to come. He is lame, he suffers pain and physical decadence, he knows that by gradual retreats life is leaving him; yet this light that burns on the height, and this loving and capacious dream and carol for America and for the world, are strong as in youth.

Day by day he sends forth some new message to the world- some poem, some bit of penetrating prose written on the oddest pieces of paper utilized in the history of literature. He writes a large hand, uses a mammoth Falcon pen, will dip in none but the blackest ink; he will not punctuate by the rule of schools, will not adopt the phraseology of taste, will not rhyme like the poets, will not carpet his study, will not reverence the mechanic in man more than the king in man, but only the man in man, will not repulse the criminal, will not travel the polite earth for fame or gain. What men need to know of him is his wonderful simplicity and capaciousness that manuscript, house, room, nurse, pen, chirography, friendships, speech, all point to impulses, means, and ends, unusual and great. It is the mark of a new entrance upon

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HIRTY years ago there stood on the old country road, as near the centre of District No. 3 as surveyor's chain could make it, this old, square, red schoolhouse. It had once been sanded. Here and there, at recess, could be seen some girl sharpening her slate pencil against its rough surface. It was perched on a side hill, bleak and cold. The doorstep was a rough flat stone from the roadside. There were broad shutters like those seen on country stores, which were always getting loose and slamming against the sash. Broken windows were quite prevalent. No shade trees grew around the schoolhouse-only one poor solitary ash that was so destitute of foliage that it could not cast a shadow. Three-fourths of the

scholars came from the village a mile away; one-fourth, from the scattered farmhouses. Nearly all carried their dinners in tin pails.

In summer time there was a good show of bare feet. Those who did not go barefoot were shod with Uncle Jerry's hand-made shoes, all from the same last with a few alterations, very unlike the "Red Schoolhouse Shoe" which one finds in shops to-day, and which, it is worth stating, was named after this same dear old schoolhouse by one who attended there in early life. Good, strong, broad soles had Uncle Jerry's shoes, with rolled leather strings. It took a vigorous boy to start a seam on those thorough made articles. How busy the old gentleman used to be in his little shop near the village in "the fall of the year!" His fame for the durability of his shoes spread for miles around. His taps

It

The entry to the schoolhouse was packed with wood. A few nails for outside garments were driven in a row upon one side. As you opened the door to the schoolroom, the teacher's desk was opposite, raised upon a platform a foot from the floor. Space under the desk was used by the teacher to store away unruly culprits until the time came to chastise them. Back of the desk was the blackboard, the big blackboard; there was another small one near the door. At the left, as you entered, there was a three-cornered shelf, which held the water pail with its tin dipper. was considered a great honor to pass the water. The proceeding usually took place twice a day in summer. There were five rows of seats on each side of the room, three in a row, besides the low seats in front of each desk on the floor row. These were occupied by the little ones learning their A B C. The room was warmed in winter by a large box stove, which was generally red hot, those nearest the stove suffering with heat, those at the back of the room with cold. The seats near the fire were well blistered; the pitch oozed out here and there, and sometimes the wood fairly smoked. There was a scuttlehole overhead. Tradition said many a tramp had rested there.

The desks had once been painted blue. The inside a simple pine shelf-had never felt the brush. All the desks bore marks of the former industry of their occupants in rude carvings and caricatures, fly traps and puzzles. Frequent scourings given the night before examination day had removed all paint from the tops. What fun we had, cleaning up! We brought our supper, the teacher directed, and we worked with a will. After the scouring we decorated the room with garlands of leaves and flowers. The blackboard bore the map of South Amer

once. Those end boys had the worst of it. It was quite a way to Mr. Smith's well, which had a windlass with chain and bucket attached.

On the right of the schoolhouse lived a farmer intensely disliked by the scholars. There grew on the roadside, between the little red schoolhouse and his door, a few straggling red rose bushes, interspersed here and there with creepers and "bouncing Bets," which the boys and girls were wont to gather though strictly forbidden by this same farmer— to adorn their desks. He occasionally fired white beans at us from an old shotgun, while

we

were gathering the flowers. The stone wall befriended us, and only the poor "bouncing Bets" and roses got the pelting. The result was, of course, that the boys and girls pulled up his corn, tumbled the stones from the wall, ate up his turnips, made Jack o'Lanterns of his pumpkins, let out the cattle, stoned the hens whenever they dared show themselves on our lines, did all manner of mischief that the ringleaders could suggest. He took his revenge in the dark, by hiding our ball clubs, and even by putting dead cats and rats in our seats. But he was a cranky fellow.

At the left lived a man brimful of the milk of human kindness, and beloved by all. His good motherly wife many a time took the butter from out the well, that fifteen or twenty boys and girls might get a drink from that old, moss-covered well. Surely no water since was ever so cold or clear as that. We never stoned this man's hens, or pulled his corn.

Nearly opposite his place was a pile of logs against the wall, and sheltered by some friendly maples the girls played at housekeeping there, and had tea parties. with bits of crockery, made mud pies and cakes and sundry refreshing drinks, had cook-books compiled by Mary Jane Newhall, hid in clefts of the wall, which would not match Miss Parloa's perhaps, but to which a high value was attached.

We had a postoffice which Jim Green made. What excitement when the bell rang and Jim distributed the mail! On Valentine's day what peals of laughter

off the roof and sides of his vehicle. Wonder of wonders! There was Mount Vernon in miniature,-house and grounds, green lawns and terraces on which the flowers ever bloomed, orange trees laden with their golden fruit, parks, lakes with swans and small boats, soldiers and citizens, boys and girls, scattered through the grounds. The Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay all were there, even the tomb of Washington with a weeping willow on each side. A wonderful piece of Yankee ingenuity and enterprise! After we had looked to our heart's content, the boys put the horse into the shafts, helped put the roof and sides on again to keep Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac all right, and the man mounted the seat under the roof, cracked the whip, and moved on. I wonder if those fortunate comrades who have looked upon Mount

Vernon since in reality felt the awe and wonder which they felt when, on that summer day, those barefooted boys and girls stood around that pictured Mount Vernon and listened to that wonderful lecture.

Our good fathers and mothers early instilled it into our minds that poverty was no disgrace, and the boy or girl with the threadbare suit shared equally in our rank and file. Poverty and wealth sat side by side; respectability was all our code of laws required.

The little red schoolhouse has long since passed. Many of the scholars sleep in "God's acre" on the hillside. Old Bunker is there, and the desolate ash still stands with its storm-beaten arms outstretched to heaven, - all that is left save memory to tell of the boys and girls who many years ago made dandelion and daisy chains at its feet.