“A NOTED TRAVELER”

Even in such a scene of senseless play

The children were surprised one summer-day

By a strange man who called across the fence,

Inquiring for their father's residence;

And, being answered that this was the place,

Opened the gate, and with a radiant face,

Came in and sat down with them in the shade

And waited — till the absent father made

His noon appearance, with a warmth and zest

That told he had no ordinary guest

In this man whose low-spoken name he knew

At once, demurring as the stranger drew

A stuffy notebook out and turned and set

A big fat finger on a page and let

The writing thereon testify instead

Of further speech. And as the father read

All silently, the curious children took

Exacting inventory both of book

And man:— He wore a long-napped white fur-hat

Pulled firmly on his head, and under that

Rather long silvery hair, or iron-gray —

For he was not an old man,— anyway,

Not beyond sixty. And he wore a pair

Of square-framed spectacles — or rather there

Were two more than a pair,— the extra two

Flared at the corners, at the eyes’ side-view,

In as redundant vision as the eyes

Of grasshoppers or bees or dragonflies.

Later the children heard the father say

He was “A Noted Traveler,” and would stay

Some days with them — In which time host and guest

Discussed, alone, in deepest interest,

Some vague, mysterious matter that defied

The wistful children, loitering outside

The spare-room door. There Bud acquired a quite

New list of big words — such as “Disunite,”

And “Shibboleth,” and “Aristocracy,”

And “Juggernaut,” and “Squatter Sovereignty,”

And “Anti-slavery,” “Emancipate,”

“Irrepressible conflict,” and “The Great

Battle of Armageddon” — obviously

A pamphlet brought from Washington, D. C.,

And spread among such friends as might occur

Of like views with “The Noted Traveler.”