r only, in a dream-valley apart
from and invisible to, the rest of the world, for their dreams of which
it was constructed made it theirs and theirs alone. Their dreams piled
beautiful mountains around the valley through which peace flowed as a
gentle river, while love and contentment and innocent pleasures were as
flowers besprinkling the grass and speaking to their hearts of the love
and the glory of God, and the fancies with which they beguiled the time
were as tall, fantastic trees, moved by soft zephyrs. And because of the
bright flowers ever springing in the green turf that carpeted the
valley, they named it the _Valley of the Many-Colored Grass_. And to the
three the dream-valley, with its peace and its beauty and its sweet
seclusion, was the real world, while all the wilderness outside of it,
where other men dwelt was the unreal.

* * * * *

One happy effect of these peaceful days upon The Dreamer was that there
was in them no temptation to excess--no restless craving for excitement.
The Bohemian--the Edgar Goodfellow--side of him found, it is true, an
outlet, but a harmless one. He found it in the genial atmosphere of the
Widow Meagher's modest eating-house where he and his new crony, Wilmer,
passed many a jolly hour. The widow, an elderly, portly dame, with a
kind Irish heart and keen Irish wit, had the power of diffusing a
wonderful cheerfulness around her. Her shop was clean, if plain, her
oysters were savory, if cheap. Like all women, she petted Edgar Poe, and
hearing from Wilmer that he was a poet, she at once gave him the name by
which the West Point boys had called him, and to all of the frequenters
of her shop he was known as "the Bard."

Her shop had not only an oyster counter, but a bar and a room for cards
and smoking but these had little attraction for Poe at this period of
his career--much to the widow's dissatisfaction, for she wished "the
Bard" to be merry, and did not like to see him neglect what she honestly
and unblushingly believed to be the really good things of life. But
though to her pressing invitations, "Bard take a hand," "Bard take a
nip," he was generally deaf, he was more accomodating when, after
getting off an unusually clever bit of pleasantry (putting her
customers into an uproar of laughter) she would turn to him with, "Bard
put it in poethry." And put it "in poethry" he did--to the increased
hilarity of the crowd.

* * *