I never met Alfred Russel Wallace, but I know if I should, I would find
him very gentle, kindly and simple in all his ways--as really great men
ever are. He would not talk to me in Latin nor throw off technical
phrases about great nothings, and I would feel just as much at home with
him as I did with Ol' John Burroughs the last time I saw him, leaning up
against a country railroad-station in shirt-sleeves, chewing a straw,
exchanging salutes with the engineer on a West Shore jerkwater. "S'
long, John!" called the going one as he leaned out of the cab-window.
"S' long, Bill, and good luck to you," was the cheery answer.

But still, all of us have moments when we think of the world's most
famous ones as being surely eight feet tall, and having voices like
fog-horns.

"I can do most any kind of hard work, you know"--I was aroused from my
little mental excursion, and noticed that my visitor had hair of a
light yellow like a Swede from Hennepin County, Minnesota, and that his
hair was three shades lighter than his bronzed face. "I can do any kind
of work, you know, and if you will just loan me that pick"--and I handed
him the pickax.

Young Wallace remained with us for a week, asking for nothing, doing
everything, even to helping the girls wash dishes. That he was the son
of a great man, no one would have ever learned from his own lips. In
fact, I am not sure that he was impressed with his father's excellence,
but I saw there was a tender bond between them, for he haunted the
post-office, morning, noon and night, looking for a letter from his
father. When it came he was as happy as a woodchuck. He showed me the
letter: it was nine finely written pages.

But to my disappointment not a word about marsupials, siamangs or
Syndactylae: just news about John, William, Mary and Benjamin; with
references to chickens and cows, and a new greenhouse, with a little
good advice about keeping right hours and not overeating.

The young man had spent three years at Oxford, and was an electrical
engineer. He was intent on finding out just as much about the secrets of
American railroad construction as he possibly could. As for intellect, I
did not discover any vast amount; perhaps, for that matter, he didn't
either. But we all greatly enjoyed his visit, and when he went away I
presented him with a clean, secondhand flannel shirt and my blessing.

* * * * *

From the appearance of the young man I imagine