reason he is able to bring all his scenes before us so vividly,
without wearying our patience.

FOOTNOTES:

[352-1] From _Treasure Island_.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER[381-1]

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Near the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the old homestead of his
father's family, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier was born December 17,
1807. Like all the other children who generation after generation had
come to live in this Quaker dwelling, he was brought up in simple,
useful ways, and was early given his full share of the duties about the
farm. No matter how sharply the cold of the harsh New England winter
pierced his homespun clothes, the snow must be shoveled from the paths,
firewood must be brought, the stalls in the barn must be littered, and,
worst task of all for him, seven cows must be milked. Yet there was
plenty of fun to be had, too. When the snow fell so heavily that it
blocked all the roads and closed in tightly about the house, the two
Whittier boys found it exciting work to dig their way to the outside
world.

When the early twilight fell and passed into night, the boys with their
sisters joined the group gathered about the great hearth, and there
listened to stories of Indians, witches and Christian martyrs, and to
many another weird or adventurous tale told by the older members of the
family. While they were being thus entertained, the blaze of the red
logs went roaring up the chimney,

"The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons' straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood."

All too soon this pleasant time came to an end, and the boys must go to
their bare, unheated room upstairs. There, the poet has written,

"Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the lightsifted snowflakes fall;
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till