of silence followed. Then Fenimore Cooper cracked his
whip, resumed his song, with some careless chat on incidents of the day,
and drove homeward. Not long afterward he shut himself in his library,
and the first pages of _The Deerslayer_ were written.[108]

There were perhaps many in the village who felt honored in being
neighbor to a novelist of international fame. But the general sentiment
toward Fenimore Cooper in his home town was not altogether created by
his success as a writer. It may be that the aged Miss Nancy Williams,
who lived in the house which still stands on Main Street next east of
the Second National Bank, was not alone in her estimate of this kind of
success. Her favorite seat was at a front window where she was daily
occupied in knitting, and watching all passers-by. Whenever Fenimore
Cooper passed, whom she had known as a boy, Miss Williams called out to
him: "James, why don't you stop wasting your time writing those silly
novels, and try to make something of yourself!"

[Illustration: _C. A. Schneider_

THE HOME OF NANCY WILLIAMS]

Whatever may have been the village estimate of his fame as a novelist,
there were certain personal traits in Cooper that went farther than
anything he ever wrote to fix the esteem of his fellow citizens. Among
acquaintances whom he admitted as his social equals he was universally
beloved; to these he showed all the charm and fascination of a gracious
personality and brilliant mind. The more intimately Cooper was
approached the more unreservedly he was admired, and within his own
family he was almost adored. In the humbler walks of life those who
habitually recognized Cooper as a superior had nothing to complain of.
But there were many in Cooperstown who had no warmth of feeling toward
Fenimore Cooper. They were quick to detect in him an attitude of
contemptuous superiority toward the villagers. Some of the neighbors
felt that he willingly remained a stranger to them. When he passed along
the street without seeing people who expected a greeting from him, his
friends averred that it was because his mind, abstracted from present
scenes and passers-by, was engaged in the dramatic development of some
tale of sea or forest. But those who felt snubbed by his indifference
were less charitable in their interpretation of his bearing toward them.
Cooper had been for seven years a lion in Europe, splendidly entertained
by the Princess Galitzin in Paris, where he was overwhelmed w