sor Longfellow. He was
so handsome, so lively, so exquisitely neat in dress, that they were
very proud to introduce him to their parents, and best of all, he made
their lessons so interesting that they were actually sorry when the
class was dismissed. He proved a fine teacher. But, besides teaching in
the college, Henry wrote poem after poem. It was not long before his
verses were liked in other countries as well as in America. French
people began to say: "Why, we want our children to know Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's poems!" And Spanish ladies and Italian noblemen declared
they were beautiful. Finally so many countries were asking for these
poems they were translated into fifteen languages.

Longfellow was soon called "The Poet of Every Land."

You will think that was the right name for him, when you hear what
happened on a big ocean steamer. Once a large party of travelers were
sailing from Greece to France. As they sat talking one evening, somebody
praised the great French poet, Victor Hugo. A lovely Russian lady spoke
up: "Victor Hugo is fine, but no poet is so well known as the American
Longfellow. I want to go to Boston to see the Bridge about which he
wrote." Then she repeated every word of "I stood on the Bridge at
Midnight." Upon that, an English captain just back from the Zulu war,
recited a Longfellow poem. A gray-haired Scotchman said another, an
American remembered one, a Greek sang some verses of Longfellow's that
had been set to music, and when the French captain of the steamer
declaimed "Excelsior", there was great handclapping, and it showed that
Henry Longfellow was indeed a favorite poet.

Henry Longfellow liked Cambridge. He boarded in a fine old place,
Craigie House, where General George Washington had once stayed. And when
he was married to a Boston girl, her father gave them Craigie House for
a wedding present. Longfellow was so happy as the years went on, that he
wrote better than ever. You will like his "Hiawatha", which tells about
the Indians, his "Evangeline", and the story of Myles Standish. Do not
forget to read "The Children's Hour." Longfellow was never too busy to
play with his children and saw to it that they were kept happy. Once
when he took the three girls to England, Charles Dickens, the great
English writer, asked them to visit at his grand place, Gads Hill. He
sent a wonderful coach, all glittering with gold trimmings and driven by
men in scarlet livery, to the station for them,