afterward to
boast that Fenimore Cooper had opened a gate for her when she was riding
horseback, and stood hat in hand while she passed through.

Allowance must be made for a somewhat distorted perspective in the
impression produced by Cooper upon the memories of not a few children,
for, judging from their reminiscences, the Garden of Eden was not more
inviting than his, nor its fruits more to be desired, nor was the angel
with the flaming sword more terribly vigilant than Fenimore Cooper in
guarding the trees from unholy hands. The glimpses of the novelist most
vividly remembered by these youngsters relate to attempted invasions of
the orchard near his house, and their furious repulse by the irascible
owner, who charged upon the trespassers with loud objurgations and a
flourishing stick. One who picked a rose without permission long
remembered the "awful lecture" that Cooper gave her, and how he said,
"It is just as bad to take my flowers as to steal my money."[110]

Among the children of his own friends there was quite a different
opinion of Cooper. Elihu Phinney, who was a playmate of the novelist's
son Paul, and a frequent guest at Otsego Hall, had an intense admiration
for the author of the _Leather-Stocking Tales_, although he long
remembered a lesson in table manners, by which, on one of these visits,
his host had startled him. At dinner young Elihu passed his plate with
knife and fork upon it for a second supply, when from the head of the
table came this reprimand: "My boy, never leave your implements on the
plate. You might drop knife or fork in a lady's lap. Take them both
firmly in your left hand, and hold them until your plate is returned."
Half a century afterward Elihu Phinney declared that whatever the ruling
of etiquette might be in this matter, he had never since failed to heed
this bit of advice from Fenimore Cooper. Mrs. Stephen H. Synnott, wife
of a one-time rector of Christ Church in Cooperstown, remembered Cooper
as a genuine lover of children. She was Alice Trumbull Worthington, and
during the novelist's latter years she lived as a child in the White
House on Main Street, nearest neighbor to Otsego Hall. "To meet Fenimore
Cooper on the street in the village was always a pleasure," says Mrs.
Synnott. "His eye twinkled, his face beamed, and his cane pointed at
you with a smile and a greeting of some forthcoming humor. When I
happened to be passing the gates of the old Hall, and he and Mrs. Cooper