nced, he and Mrs. Clemm laid
out some flower beds in the front garden and planted them with flowers
and vines given by the neighbors, until when in May the cherry tree
again blossomed the little abode assumed quite an attractive appearance.
Upon an old "settle" left by a former tenant, and which Mrs. Clemm's
skillful hands had mended and scrubbed and stained into respectability
and placed beneath the cherry tree as a garden-seat, Poe might now often
be seen reclining; gazing up into the branches, where birds and bees
flitted in and out, or talking and whistling to his own pets, a parrot
and bobolink, whose cages hung in the branches. A passer-by was
impressed by the picture presented quite early one summer morning of the
poet and his mother standing together on the green turf, smilingly
looking up and talking to these pets. Here, on the convenient _settle_,
on returning from one of his long sunrise rambles, he would rest until
summoned by his mother to his frugal breakfast.

I have at various times heard persons remark that in reading the life of
a distinguished man they have desired to know some of the lesser details
of his daily life--as, how did he dress? what did he eat? We have all
been interested in learning that General Washington liked corn bread and
fried bacon for breakfast; that Sir Walter Scott was fond of "oaten
grills with milk," and that Wordsworth's favorite lunch was bread and
raisins. As regards Poe, we must go back to his sister's account of what
his morning meal consisted of while she was at Fordham--"a pretzel and
two cups of strong coffee;" or, when there was no pretzel, the crusty
part of a loaf with a bit of salt herring as a relish. Poe had the
reputation of being a very moderate eater and of preferring simple
viands, even at the luxurious tables of his friends. He was fond of
fruit, and his sister said of buttermilk and curds, which they obtained
from their rural neighbors. But we recall his enjoyment of the "elegant"
tea-cakes at the Morrisons on Greenwich street and the fried eggs for
breakfast.

A lady who as a little girl knew Poe and his mother at this time said to
a correspondent of the _New York Commercial Advertiser_: "We lived so
near them that we saw them every day. They lived miserably, and in
abject poverty. He was naturally improvident, and but for the neighbors
they must have starved. My mother sent many a thing from her storeroom
to their table. He was not a man who drank in the