om love
of his work. It is every whit as delightful as "The Cotter's Saturday
Night;" and it is realistically true in every detail. Here we have the
family portraits drawn to life,--the father, who

"Rode again his ride
On Memphremagog's wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper's hut and Indian camp;
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock trees;"

and showed how

"Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away,
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl."

The mother,

"While she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Cocheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free,
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days."

The uncle,

"Innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,--
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature's unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries."

The picture is very attractive of this

"Simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds."

Next,

"The dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear,--
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love's unselfishness."

Then the elder sister,

"A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice."

The youngest sister, with "large, sweet, asking eyes," and the

"Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school,"

make up the customary group; and it is safe to say that they were royal
company on that winter night.

Another description of the life of his boyhood may be found in "The
Barefoot Boy." No