n learned the result of their carelessness. The lad who
fired the gun was named Philip Butler, and he has since acquired a high
reputation as an artist. The painting representing the Haverhill
homestead which is to be seen at the birthplace was executed by this
artist. He tells of the kindness with which Whittier received his
tearful confession. It was during the first days of the Mexican war,
and some of the papers humorously commented upon it as a singular fact
that the first blood drawn was from the veins of a Quaker who had so
actively opposed entering upon that war.

[Illustration: SCENE IN GARDEN, AT WHITTIER'S FUNERAL]

Once while his guest at Amesbury, I went with him to town meeting. He
was one of the first men in the town to vote that morning, and after
voting spent an hour talking politics with his townsmen. General C.,
his candidate for Congress, had been intemperate, and the temperance
men were making that excuse for voting in favor of Colonel F., who,
Whittier said, always drank twice as much as C., but was harder headed
and stood it better. Other candidates were being scratched for reasons
as flimsy, and our Grand Old Man was getting disgusted with the Grand
Old Party, as represented at that meeting. He said to a friend he met,
"The Republicans are scratching like wild cats." In the evening an old
friend and neighbor called on him, and was complaining of Blaine and
other party leaders. At last Mr. Whittier said, "Friend Turner, has
thee met many angels and saints in thy dealings with either of the
parties? Thy experience should teach thee not to expect too much of
human nature." On the same evening he told of a call Mr. Blaine made
upon him some time previously. The charm of his manner, he said,
recalled that of Henry Clay, as he remembered him. On that occasion
Blaine made a suggestion for the improvement of a verse in the poem
"Among the Hills," which Whittier adopted. The verse is descriptive of
a country maiden, who was said to be

"Not beautiful in curve and line."

Blaine suggested as an amendment,--

"Not _fair alone_ in curve and line;"

and this is the reading in the latest editions.

[Illustration: THE FERRY, SALISBURY POINT

Mouth of Powow in foreground at the right hidden by its own banks in
this picture. Hawkswood in distance at extreme right.]

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, during his residence in Newburyport, was
often a guest at the Amesbury home, and he has this to say of