hen he turned around. An old man, of sixty-five, at
least, but with a face and an eye of the most cheery and wholesome
expression I had ever seen in either youth or age. Over his broad
bronzed forehead and white hair he wore a low-crowned, wide-brimmed
black felt hat, somewhat rusted now, and with the band grease-crusted,
and the binding frayed at intervals, and sagging from the threads that
held it on. An old-styled frock coat of black, dull brown in streaks,
and quite shiny about the collar and lapels. A waistcoat of no
describable material or pattern, and a clean white shirt and collar of
one piece, with a black string-tie and double bow, which would have
been entirely concealed beneath the long white beard but for its
having worked around to one side of the neck. The front outline of the
face was cleanly shaven, and the beard, growing simply from the under
chin and throat, lent the old pioneer the rather singular appearance
of having hair all over him with this luxurious growth pulled out
above his collar for mere sample.

I arose and asked the old man to sit down, handing him a chair
decorously.

"No--no," he said--"I'm much obleeged. I hain't come in to bother you
no more'n I can he'p. All I wanted was to know ef you got my poetry
all right. You know I take yer paper," he went on, in an explanatory
way, "and seein' you printed poetry in it once-in-a-while, I sent you
some of mine--neighbors kindo' advised me to," he added
apologetically, "and so I sent you some--two or three times I sent you
some, but I hain't never seed hide-ner-hair of it in your paper, and
as I wus in town to-day, anyhow, I jest thought I'd kindo' drap in and
git it back, ef you ain't goin' to print it--'cause I allus save up
most the things I write, aimin' sometime to git 'em all struck off in
pamphlet-form, to kindo' distribit round 'mongst the neighbors, don't
you know."

Already I had begun to suspect my visitor's identity, and was
mechanically opening the drawer of our poetical department.

"How was your poetry signed?" I asked.

"Signed by my own name," he answered proudly,--"signed by my own
name,--Johnson--Benjamin F. Johnson, of Boone County--this state."

"And is this one of them, Mr. Johnson?" I asked, unfolding a
clumsily-folded manuscript, and closely scrutinizing the verse.

"How does she read?" said the old man eagerly, and searching in the
meantime for his spectacles. "How does she read?--Then I can tell
you!"

"It re