in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams.
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores."

In the warm season, though there was much to do in helping plant and
harvest the crops, there were good times to be had in climbing to the
top of Job's hill, next to the house, where the friendly oxen were
pastured, or in gathering berries or nuts, or in watching the birds,
bees and squirrels as they worked or played about their homes. It was
these delights of his childhood that the poet was calling to
remembrance when he wrote _The Barefoot Boy_, which may be found
elsewhere in these volumes.

[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE]

Probably there are few country lads to-day who know so little as did the
Whittier boys of the common sights and pleasures of city life. The
strict Quaker belief regarding children's amusement barred them from
most of the enjoyment familiar to the young people in the great world
that lay beyond their home. So little were they acquainted with the
forbidden attractions at the circus that one time when President Monroe
visited Haverhill, Greenleaf (as the poet was known in his home),
looking next day for traces of the presence of the great man, whom he
had not been allowed to see, came upon the tracks of an elephant that
had been in town with a traveling menagerie, and in his ignorance
believed that these were the footsteps of the famous visitor. The
theater, so the children were taught, was to be shunned as a place of
wickedness. Once when Greenleaf was visiting in Boston he was asked to
go to a play by a lady whom he met in the home where he was staying.
When he found that the lady was an actress, he became so much afraid of
being led into sinful ways that, not daring to remain longer, he started
off at once for home.

Though young Whittier was a wide-awake boy and eager to learn, there was
only the district school, held for a few weeks each winter, for him to
attend. Yet an opportunity was not lacking for bringing to light his
poetic gift. One of his schoolmasters, who lived for part of the term in
the Whittier home, used to read to the family from various interesting
books, and one night chose for their entertainment a volume of Burns's
poems. As the lines of the much-loved Scotch poet fell from the reader's
lips, the young boy listened as he had never before listened in his
life. His own power awakened and responded warmly to that of