the night previous; and
by seven o'clock of such a May morning as no words could
describe, unless words were themselves May mornings, we had made
the twenty-five miles up the St. John's to where the Ocklawaha
flows into that stream nearly opposite Welaka, one hundred miles
above Jacksonville.

It was on this journey that he saw the most magnificent residence that
he had ever beheld, the home of an old friend of his, an alligator,
who possessed a number of such palatial mansions and could change his
residence at any time by the simple process of swimming from one to
another.

On his return to Baltimore he lived at 55 Lexington in four rooms
arranged as a French flat. He makes mention of a gas stove "on which
my comrade magically produces the best coffee in the world, and this,
with fresh eggs (boiled through the same handy little machine), bread,
butter, and milk, forms our breakfast." December 3 he writes from the
little French flat, announcing that he "has plunged in and brought
forth captive a long Christmas poem for _Every Saturday_," a Baltimore
weekly publication. The poem was "Hard Times in Elfland." He says,
"Wife and I have been to look at a lovely house with eight rooms and
many charming appliances," whereof the rent was less than that of the
four rooms.

The next month he writes from 33 Denmead Street, the eight-room house,
to which he had gone, with the attendant necessity of buying "at least
three hundred twenty-seven household utensils" and "hiring a colored
gentlewoman who is willing to wear out my carpets, burn out my range,
freeze out my water-pipes, and be generally useful." He mentions
having written a couple of poems, and part of an essay on Beethoven
and Bismarck, but his chief delight is in his new home, which invests
him with the dignity of paying taxes and water rates. He takes the
view that no man is a Bohemian who has to pay water rates and street
tax.

* * * * *

In addition to supporting his new dignity he finds time and strength
for his usual work, and he writes on January 30, 1878, "I have been
mainly at work on some unimportant prose matter for pot-boilers, but I
get off a short poem occasionally, and in the background of my mind am
writing my Jacquerie." Unfortunately, "Jacquerie" remained in the
background of his mind, with the exception of two songs--all we have
to indicate what a stirring presentation our literature might have h