ive. I, city-bred and green
as grass as to country lore, rashly attempted to explain; the inserted
finger gave a good purchase on the calf which in its pain became at
once tractable, but the men present who had been farm-boys, with loud
laughter ridiculed the suggestion. Did I not know that nature had
provided a conduit through which the needed sustenance was conveyed
from the maternal udder, and that it was quite possible to delude the
unsuspecting calf into the belief that the slyly inserted finger was
that conduit? The triumph of the Irish girl was explained, and I sank
back, covered with confusion. Fiske, however, blurted out: "Why, I
never should have thought of that in all my life," whereat he too
became the target of ridicule.

I never saw John Fiske happier than once at Concord. Our host had
invited us for a day and had prepared a programme that only Concord
could furnish. The prelude was a performance of the Andante to a
Sonata of Rubinstein, Opus 12, rendered exquisitely by the daughter of
our host. I saw the great frame of my fellow-guest heave with emotion
while his breath came almost in sobs as his spirit responded to
the music. Then came a canoe-trip on the river to which John Fiske
joyfully assented though some of the rest of us were not without
apprehension. Fiske in a canoe was a ticklish proposition, but
there he was at last, comfortably recumbent, his head propped up on
cushions, serenely at ease though a very narrow margin intervened
between water-line and gunwale. The performer of the Sonata, who was
as deft at the paddle as she was at the piano, served as his pilot and
propeller while the rest of us formed an escort which could be turned
into a rescue party if occasion required. A stout, capacious rowboat
followed immediately in the wake of the canoe. We went down the dark,
placid current in the fine summer weather to the Battleground, and
then looked into the solemn forest aisle which arches over the narrow
Assabeth. The day was perfect, the flowers and birds were at their
best, the pleasant nature was all about us. All this John Fiske drank
in to the full but still more was he touched by the great associations
of the environment. From the bank yonder had been "fired the shot
heard round the world." The hill-tops, meadows, the gentle river had
been loved and frequented by Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson; in
these surroundings had bloomed forth the finest flowering of
American literature. No heart