a time worked the farm together, and when in later life they indulged
in reminiscences of this agricultural experience, this is a story with
which the poet liked to tease his brother: Franklin was sent to swap
cows with a venerable Quaker living at considerable distance from their
homestead. He came back with a beautiful animal, warranted as he
supposed to be a good cow, and he depended upon a verbal warrant from a
member of a Society which was justly proud of its reliability in all
business transactions. It was soon found that she was worthless as a
milker, and Franklin took her back, demanding a cancellation of the
bargain because the cow was not as represented. But the old Quaker was
ready for him: "What did I tell thee? Did I say she was a _good_ cow?
No, I told thee she was a _harnsome_ cow--and thee cannot deny she _is_
harnsome!"

One of Whittier's ancestors was fined for cutting oaks on the common.
When this fact was discovered, he was asked if he would wish this
circumstance to be omitted in his biography. "By no means," he said,
"tell the whole story. It shows we had some enterprising ancestors,
even if a bit unscrupulous."

When Whittier last visited his birthplace, ten years before his death,
he was saddened by many evidences he saw that the estate was not being
thriftily managed, and expressed the wish to buy and restore the place
to something like its condition when it remained in his family. Not one
of his near relatives was then so situated as to be able to take charge
of it, and his idea of again making it Whittier homestead was
reluctantly given up. When he learned, towards the close of his life,
that Mr. Ordway, Mayor Burnham, and other public-spirited citizens of
Haverhill, proposed to buy and care for the place, already become a
shrine for many visitors, he asked permission to pay whatever might be
needed for its purchase. He died before negotiations could be
completed, and Hon. James H. Carleton generously bought the homestead,
and transferred the proprietorship to a self-perpetuating board of nine
trustees, viz.: Alfred A. Ordway, George C. How, Charles Butters,
Dudley Porter, Thomas E. Burnham, Clarence E. Kelley, Susan B. Sanders,
Sarah M. F. Duncan, and Annie W. Frankle. In the deed of gift the
trustees were enjoined "to preserve as nearly as may be the natural
features of the landscape; preserve and restore the buildings thereon
as nearly as may be in the same condition as when occupied by Wh