SUGGESTIONS FOR READING Evangeline, The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Skeleton in Armor, The Birds of Killingworth, A Psalm of Life, The Arrow and the Song, The Building of the Ship, The Children's Hour, The Day is Done, The Bridge, Sandalphon, The Village Blacksmith, Resignation, The Arsenal at Springfield, Footsteps of Angels, The Jewish Cemetery at Newport, The Bells of Lynn, The Two Angels, My Lost Youth, Killed at the Ford. HELPFUL BOOKS Samuel Longfellow's Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1892, Sept. 7 Editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman. Songs of Labor. Home Ballads. Died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. Childhood. In describing the house in which he was born Whittier says: "It was surrounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast, where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low green meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes of upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as it foamed, rippled, and laughed down its rocky falls by our garden side, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still larger stream, known as the country brook." Amid such pleasant surroundings the Quaker boy was born, December 17, 1807, at Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a house built by his ancestor, Thomas Whittier, about the year 1688. His parents, John and Abigail Hussey Whittier, like their forefathers, lived a quiet, peaceful life here in the country, toiling from day to day for life's sustenance, happy in their humble station. In Snow-Bound Whittier gives us a description of his home with its several inmates. We catch a glimpse of his father, when the poet says: "A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted." His mother lived for fifty years after her son's birth and entered heartily with him into his work, cheering him with comforting words all through those dark days when he was making such a valiant fight for freedom's cause. An uncle and maiden aunt made their home with his parents, both of whom exerted a most wholesome influence over the boy. His uncle "innocent of books, Was rich in lore of fields and brooks," and from him his nephew learned many of nature's secrets. The aunt was A calm and gracious element, Whose presence seemed the sweet income Whittier was devoted to his youngest sister, Elizabeth, who was his constant companion and adviser. It was with her that he roamed in the early days through wood and meadow and gathered the wild flowers on the hillside; it was to her that he read his first poems. Whittier's youth was passed on the home farm, where a living could be made only by a constant application to toil. The life that he led was not an easy one, for his health was delicate, his cloth ing insufficient to keep out the cold of the piercing winters, and the work too laborious for his strength. There was one constant round of plowing, harvesting, wielding the heavy flail, laying stone fences, milking, and doing the daily tasks about the house and barn. Education. Whittier's education began as he listened to the stories of woodcraft from his Uncle Moses, but the education he received at school was very limited. His first teacher was Joshua Coffin, who loaned the thirteen-year-old boy a copy of Burns's Poems. This was the first genuine poetry that Whittier had ever read, with the exception of the Bible, and it made a lasting impression upon him. Much of his poetry reveals a thorough acquaintance with the Bible, which was one of the few books in the Whittier household. In 1826 his sister Mary, who was ambitious for her brother, sent one of his early attempts at poetry, The Exile's Departure, to William Lloyd Garrison, who was at that time editor of a paper in Newburyport. The poem aroused Garrison's curiosity, and he rode over to Whittier's home to see its author. After an earnest conference he advised the elder Whittier to send the lad to school, but the father, in his curt way, said that he thought it would be better for the boy to stick to the farm. Not so easily dissuaded was the young |