instructor."

But if there was "only one book at school in which he found the
slightest interest," he had before that time displayed an
affection for a book--simply as such and not for any printed word
it might contain. And this, after all, is the true book-lover's
love. Speaking of this incident--and he liked to refer to it
as his "first literary recollection," he said: "Long
before I was old enough to read I remember buying a book at an
old auctioneer's shop in Greenfield. I can not imagine what
prophetic impulse took possession of me and made me forego the
ginger cakes and the candy that usually took every cent of my
youthful income. The slender little volume must have cost all of
twenty-five cents! It was Francis Quarles' Divine Emblems,--a
neat little affair about the size of a pocket Testament. I
carried it around with me all day long, delighted with the very
feel of it.

" 'What have you got there, Bub?' some one would ask. 'A book,'
I would reply. 'What kind of a book?' 'Poetry-book.' 'Poetry!'
would be the amused exclamation. 'Can you read poetry?' and,
embarrassed, I'd shake my head and make my escape, but I held on
to the beloved little volume."

Every boy has an early determination--a first one--to follow some
ennobling profession, once he has come to man's estate, such as
being a policeman, or a performer on the high trapeze. The poet
would not have been the "Peoples' Laureate," had his fairy god-
mother granted his boy-wish, but the Greenfield baker. For to
his childish mind it "seemed the acme of delight," using again