at apple-tree
in the garden of an old house in Portland, forgetful of everything
else in the world save the book he was reading.

The boy was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the book might have been
_Robinson Crusoe_, _The Arabian Nights_, or _Don Quixote_, all
of which were prime favorites, or, possibly, it was Irving's
_Sketch-Book_, of which he was so fond that even the covers delighted
him, and whose charm remained unbroken throughout life. Years
afterward, when, as a famous man of letters, he was called upon to pay
his tribute to the memory of Irving, he could think of no more tender
praise than to speak with grateful affection of the book which had so
fascinated him as a boy, and whose pages still led him back into the
"haunted chambers of youth."

Portland was in those days a town of wooden houses, with streets
shaded with trees, and the waters of the sea almost dashing up to its
doorways. At its back great stretches of woodland swept the country
as far as the eye could see, and low hills served as watch-towers over
the deep in times of war. It was during Longfellow's childhood that
the British ship Boxer was captured by the Enterprise in the famous
sea-fight of the War of 1812; the two captains, who had fallen in the
battle, were buried side by side in the cemetery at Portland, and
the whole town came together to do honor to the dead commanders. Long
afterward Longfellow speaks of this incident in his poem entitled _My
Lost Youth_, and recalls the sound of the cannon booming across
the waters, and the solemn stillness that followed the news of the
victory.

It is in the same poem that we have a picture of the Portland of his
early life, and are given glimpses of the black wet wharves, where the
ships were moored all day long as they worked, and also the Spanish
sailors "with bearded lips" who seemed as much a mystery to the boy
as the ships themselves. These came and went across the sea, always
watched and waited for with greatest interest by the children, who
loved the excitement of the unloading and loading, the shouts of the
surveyors who were measuring the contents of cask and hogshead; the
songs of the negroes working the pulleys, the jolly good-nature of the
seamen strolling through the streets, and, above all, the sight of
the strange treasures that came from time to time into one home or
another--bits of coral, beautiful sea-shells, birds of resplendent
plumage, foreign coins, which looked odd even i