of seventy-seven. "Poor Jane!" said Mr. Burroughs one day, when
referring to her protests against his writing; "I fear she never
read a dozen printed words of mine--or shall I say 'lucky Jane'?"

John, born in 1837, was always "an odd one." (One is reminded
of what William R. Thayer said of the Franklin family: "Among
the seventeen Franklin children one was a Benjamin, and the
rest nobodies.")

Eden was born in 1839. Frail most of his life, in later years he
has become robust, and now (1913) is the only surviving member of
the family besides Mr. Burroughs. He is cheery and loquacious,
methodical and orderly, and very punctilious in dress. (One day, in
the summer of 1912, when he was calling at "Woodchuck Lodge,"--the
summer home where Mr. Burroughs has lived of late years, near the
old place where he was born,--this brother recounted some of their
youthful exploits, especially the one which yielded the material for
the essay "A White Day and a Red Fox." "I shot the fox and got five
dollars for it," said Mr. Eden Burroughs, "and John wrote a piece
about it, and got seventy-five.")

Abigail, the favorite sister of our author, appreciated her
brother's books and his ideals more than any other member of the
family. She married and had two children. At the time of her
death, in 1901, of typhoid fever (at the age of fifty-eight) the
band of brothers and sisters had been unbroken by death for more
than thirty-seven years. Her loss was a severe blow to her brother.
He had always shared his windfalls with her; she had read some of
his essays, and used to talk with him about his aspirations,
encouraging him timidly, before he had gained recognition.