d placed beside the mother-swarm in the farmer's garden.

[Illustration: JUDGE BAZIL HARRISON OF KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN.]

The author placed this incident in the "Prairie Round" of "The Oak
Openings." Its Indian Peter shows how Christian influences in time
triumph over revenge--the deadliest passion of the red-man's heart. On
New Year's Day, 1848, "The Oak Openings" was begun, and the following
spring saw it finished. This note appears in the author's diary:
"Saturday, January 1, 1848. Read St. John. No church. Weather very mild,
though snow fell in the night. Walking very bad, and I paid no visits
outside of the family. Had ---- at dinner. A merry evening with the
young people. Played chess with my wife. Wrote a little in 'Oak
Openings' to begin the year with."

Cooper was a born story-teller, and with a born sailor's love of salt
water could not for long keep from spinning tales of the sea. All of
which accounts for spirited and original "Jack Tier," which came from
his pen in 1848. The story was called at first "Rose Budd"--the name of
the young creature who is one of its important characters. But plain,
homely, hard-working "Jack," under a sailor's garb, following her
commonplace, grasping husband the world over, and finding herself in
woman's gear and grief by his side when he made his last voyage of all
without her--it is she who had _earned_ the real heroine's right to the
name "Jack Tier." It is a story of the treacherous reefs off Florida and
the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

All those quiet years in Cooperstown the author kept pace in mind and
interest with the times, and often gave expression to his opinion on
current events. Of General Scott in Mexico he wrote, February 1, 1848:
"Has not Scott achieved marvels! The gun-thunders in the valley of the
Aztecs were heard in echoes across the Atlantic." Years before this the
last chapter of "The Spy" paid tribute to the "bravery of Scott's
gallant brigade" in 1814, at Lundy's Lane, not far from Niagara. That
Cooper strongly condemned Scott's "General Order" is another record of
later years.

Reform--along all lines of service--was Cooper's watchword; his
home-cry, first and last, was to "build up our navy!" And, with his
knowledge of naval affairs and accurate estimate of seamen of all
grades, what an admirable secretary of our navy these qualifications
would have made him! His political instincts seemed clear and unerring.
April 13, 1850, he thought "Cong