t returned from his summer vacation, came
in unexpectedly, and took the thirteenth seat that had just been
vacated. Whittier's grandnephew, to again break the omen, took his
plate over to the table in the corner with his mother. It was all done
in a playful way, but the matter was recalled while we were at
breakfast next morning. The news then came of the paralysis which had
affected Mr. Whittier while dressing to join us. He never again came to
the dining room. Another incident of the same evening was more
impressive, and remains to this day inexplicable. After sitting for a
while in the parlor conversing with friends, he took his candle to
retire, and as he said "Goodnight" to his friends, and passed out of
the door, an old clock (the clock over the desk) struck once! It had
not been wound up for years, and as no one present had ever before
heard it strike, it excited surprise--the more so as the hands were not
in position for striking. It was an incident that had a marked effect
upon a party little inclined to heed omens; and in many ways, without
success, we tried to get the clock to strike once more.

[Illustration: AMESBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY]

A beautiful little lake in the northern part of Amesbury, formerly
known as Kimball's Pond, is the scene of "The Maids of Attitash." Its
present name was conferred by Whittier because huckleberries abound in
this region, and Attitash is the Indian name for this berry. His poem
pictures the maidens with "baskets berry-filled," watching

... "in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood."

In a letter to the editor of "The Atlantic" inclosing this ballad, he
says of Attitash: "It is as pretty as St. Mary's Lake which Wordsworth
sings, in fact a great deal prettier. The glimpse of the Pawtuckaway
range of mountains in Nottingham seen across it is very fine, and it
has noble groves of pines and maples and ash trees." A trolley line
from Amesbury to Haverhill passes this lake; but this is not the line
which passes the Whittier birthplace.

Annually, in the month of May, the Quarterly Meeting of the Society of
Friends is held at Amesbury, and during the fifty-six years of Mr.
Whittier's residence in the village, this was an occasion on which he
kept open house, and wherever he happened to be, he came home to enjoy
the company of friends, giving up all other engagements. He could not
be detained in Boston or Danvers, or wherever else he might be, when
the ti