oor
opened. The strange gander came hobbling over the crib-stone and went to
the corn-bin. He stopped there, looked at me, and gave a sort of glad
"honk," as though he knew me and was glad to see me.

"I was certain that he was the gander I had raised, and that Nathaniel
had lifted into the air when he gave me his last recognition from the
top of the hill.

"It overcame me. It was Thanksgiving. The church bell would soon be
ringing as on Sunday. And here was Nathaniel's Thanksgiving dinner; and
brother Aaron's--had it flown away? Where was the vessel?

"Years have passed--ten. You know I waited and waited for my boy to come
back. December grew dark with its rainy seas; the snows fell; May
lighted up the hills, but the vessel never came back. Nathaniel--my
Nathaniel--never returned.

"That gander knows something he could tell me if he could talk. Birds
have memories. He remembered the corn-crib--he remembered something
else. I wish he _could_ talk, poor bird! I wish he could talk. I will
never sell him, nor kill him, nor have him abused. _He knows!_"

=Whittier's Birthday=

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Born December 17, 1807 Died September 7, 1892

Whittier is known not only as a poet, but as a reformer and author. He
was a member of the Society of Friends. He attended a New England
academy; worked on a farm; taught school in order to afford further
education, and at the age of twenty-two edited a paper at Boston. He was
a leading opponent of slavery and was several times attacked by mobs on
account of his opinions.

=THE BOYHOOD OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER=

BY WILLIAM H. RIDEING

The life of Whittier may be read in his poems, and, by putting a note
here and a date there, a full autobiography might be compiled from them.
His boyhood and youth are depicted in them with such detail that little
need be added to make the story complete, and that little, reverently
done as it may be, must seem poor in comparison with the poetic beauty
of his own revelations.

What more can we do to show his early home than to quote from his own
beautiful poem, "Snow-bound"? There the house is pictured for us, inside
and out, with all its furnishings; and those who gather around its
hearth, inmates and visitors, are set before us so clearly that long
after the book has been put away they remain as distinct in the memory
as