dismiss him without
another story in which he figures: He had the bad habit of nipping at
the leg of a person whose trousers happened to be hitched above the top
of the boot. One day Mr. Whittier was being worn out by a prosy
harangue from a visitor who sat in a rocking-chair, and swayed back and
forth as he talked. As he rocked, Whittier noticed that his trousers
were reaching the point of danger, and now at length he had something
that interested him. Charlie was sidling up unseen by the orator. There
was a little nip followed by a sharp exclamation, and the thread of the
discourse was broken! The relieved poet now had the floor as an
apologist for his discourteous parrot.

At a time when Salmon P. Chase was in Lincoln's Cabinet, but was
beginning to think of the possibility of supplanting him at the next
presidential election, he visited Massachusetts, and called upon his
old anti-slavery friend, Mr. Whittier. Chase told him among other
things that he did not like Abraham Lincoln's stories. Whittier said,
"But do they not always have an application, like the parables?" "Oh,
yes," said Chase, "but they are not decent like the parables!"

Henry Taylor was a village philosopher of Amesbury given to the
discussion of high themes in a somewhat eccentric manner, and Whittier
had a warm side for such odd characters. Once when Emerson was his
guest, he invited Taylor to meet him, knowing that the Concord
philosopher would be amused if not otherwise interested in his Amesbury
brother. Taylor found him a good listener, and gave him the full
benefit of his theories and imaginings. Next morning Whittier called on
him to inquire what he thought of Emerson. "Oh," said he, "I find your
friend a very intelligent man. He has adopted some of my ideas."

[Illustration: THE WOOD GIANT, AT STURTEVANT'S, CENTRE HARBOR

"Alone, the level sun before;
Below, the lake's green islands;
Beyond, in misty distance dim,
The rugged Northern Highlands."]

The likeness of Whittier on page 97 is from a daguerreotype taken in
October, 1856, and has never before been published in any volume
written by or about the poet. Mr. Thomas E. Boutelle, the artist who
took this daguerreotype, is now living in Amesbury at the age of
eighty-five. He tells me how he happened to get this picture,--a rather
difficult feat, as it was hard to induce the poet to sit for his
portrait. He had set up a daguerrean saloon in the little square near