number of notes and autographs from persons
of distinction. Attached to the top of one of the bookcases was a huge
pair of antlers[107] holding in their embrace a calabash from the
southern seas.

The table at which the novelist sat once belonged to his maternal
grandfather, Richard Fenimore, and had been brought by Judge Cooper from
Burlington at the settlement of Cooperstown. It was a plain one of
English walnut, and the chair in which he sat was of the same material.
Cooper wrote rapidly, in a fine, small, clear hand, upon large sheets of
foolscap, and seldom made an erasure. No company was permitted in the
room while he was writing except an Angora cat who was allowed to bound
upon the desk without rebuke, or even to perch upon the author's
shoulders. Here the cat settled down contentedly, and with half-shut
eyes watched the steady driving of the quill across the paper.

[Illustration: A PAGE OF COOPER'S MANUSCRIPT

(Two-fifths of actual size)]

Among the many books written in this library _The Deerslayer_ brought
the greatest fame to Cooperstown, for it peopled the shores of Otsego
Lake with the creatures of Cooper's fancy, and added to the natural
beauty of its scenery the glamour of romance. The idea of writing this
story came to Fenimore Cooper on a summer afternoon as he drove from the
Chalet homeward in his farm wagon, with his favorite daughter by his
side, along the shaded road on the east shore of the lake. He was
singing cheerily, for, although no musician, often he sang snatches of
familiar songs that had struck his fancy, and above the rumbling of the
wagon his booming voice frequently was heard along the road in a sudden
burst of "Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled!" or Moore's "Love's Young
Dream"--always especial favorites with him. On this occasion, however,
it was a political song that he was singing, a ditty then popular during
the campaign of 1840 in the party opposed to his own. Suddenly he
paused, as an opening in the woods revealed a charming view of the lake.
His spirited gray eye rested a moment on the water, with an expression
of abstracted poetical thought, familiar to those who lived with him;
then, turning to the companion at his side, he exclaimed: "I must write
one more book, dearie, about our little lake!" Again his eye rested on
the water and wooded shores with the far-seeing look of one who already
had a vision of living figures and dusky forms moving amid the quiet
scene. A moment