nt
back to his boyhood memories. Little had he realized in those days how
the words Captain Kent spoke in the garden would come true. He had
drifted into writing before he realized what a great untrodden field lay
before him.

The story of James Fenimore Cooper is an inspiration to every American.
It is the history of a man who loved his country deeply, and who was as
fine-spirited a gentleman as he was a great author.

VII

John Ericsson

The Boy of the Goeta Canal: 1803-1889

Among the Swedish country people there still lingers a primitive half
belief in witches and goblins, and nymphs and elves of the forests and
the sea. Many a simple mountaineer, returning home from some lonely
trip, tells tales of prophetic voices he heard whispering in the wind or
of gnomes who interrupted his slumbers in the woods. One such legend
runs as follows.

A wealthy farmer named Ericsson, who owned many acres in the Swedish
province of Vermland, had in his service a crippled lad whose business
it was to tend the sheep. This work kept him away from people much of
the time, and led him through the pine woods, beside the little tarns,
or hidden inland lakes, and up and down the wild mountains where the
fairy people dwell. He grew quite accustomed to meeting wood or lake
nymphs in his wanderings, and became so friendly with them that they
often gave him good advice, such as when to expect a storm, or where he
might find the best grazing for his flock.

One day he was caught in the rain and when he found shelter in a
deserted barn he was so wet and exhausted that he fell into a troubled
sleep. While he slept a pixie came to him and whispered in his ear that
in time to come a house should be built on that part of farmer
Ericsson's land, and that two boys should be born there who should make
the name of Ericsson known round the world.

The shepherd was much excited by the news, and as soon as he reached the
Ericsson house he told the fairy's prophecy. The family were very much
concerned and wrote the prophecy down in the family Bible, and also
spread the story through the province. That was in the seventeenth
century.

Near the end of the eighteenth century young Olof Ericsson married, and
built him a home on that part of the family land where the old barn had
stood. He had three children, a daughter named Caroline, and two sons,
named Nils and John. One day the mother heard the old legend and
identified the place with her