Memories and Anecdotes | Page 6

which he hadn't orter, But hotter still is
the love I bear For Professor Sanborn's daughter.

with chorus as before.
I threw down lovely flowers and timidly thanked them. They applauded,
sang a rollicking farewell, and were gone. If I could have removed my
heart painlessly, I believe that would have gone out too. They had gone,
but the blissful memory! I leaned on the window sill, and the moon
with its bounteous mellow radiance filled my room. But listen, hark!
Only two doors beyond, the same voices, the same melodious tones,
and alas, yes, the same words, every verse and the same chorus--same
masculine fervour--but somebody else's daughter.
A breakfast comment: "It's a terrible nuisance this caterwauling in the
middle of the night in front of the house!" For once I was silent.
Many distinguished men were invited to Dartmouth as orators at
commencement or on special occasions, as Rufus Choate, Edward
Everett, John G. Saxe, Wendell Phillips, Charles Dudley Warner, and
Dr. Holmes, whom I knew in his Boston study, overlooking the water
and the gulls. By the way, he looked so young when arriving at
Hanover for a few lectures to the Medical School that he was asked if
he had come to join the Freshman class.
There were also Edwin P. Whipple, the essayist, and Walt Whitman,
who was chosen one year for the commencement poet. He appeared on
the platform wearing a flannel shirt, square-cut neck, disclosing a
hirsute covering that would have done credit to a grizzly bear; the rest
of his attire all right. Joaquin Miller was another genius and original.
Another visitor was James T. Fields of Boston, the popular publisher,
poet, author, lecturer, friend, and inimitable raconteur, who was always
one of my best friends.
When Mr. and Mrs. Fields were invited to Hanover, he and his
beautiful wife were always guests at our home. Their first visit to us
was an epoch for me. I worked hard the morning before they were to
arrive, sweeping, dusting, polishing silver, and especially brightening
the large, brass andirons in father's library. I usually scoured with rotten
stone and oil, but on this great occasion, adopting a receipt which I had

happened to see in a newspaper, I tried vinegar and powdered
pumice-stone. The result at first was fine.
I had barely time after all this to place flowers about the house and
dress, and then to drive in our old carryall, with our older horse, to the
station at Norwich, just across the Connecticut River, to meet the
distinguished pair and escort them to our house. As I heard the train
approaching, and the shrill whistle, I got nervous, and my hands
trembled. How would they know me? And what had I better say? My
aged and spavined horse was called by father "Rosinante" for Don
Quixote's bony steed, also "Blind Guide" and "Heathen Philosopher."
He looked it--and my shabby carryall! But the train was snorting for a
stop, and the two guests soon came easily to my vehicle, and Mr. Fields
seemed to know me. Both shook hands most cordially and were soon in
the back seat, full of pleasant chat and the first exciting ordeal was over.
At tea table Mr. and Mrs. Fields sat on either side of father, and the
stories told were different from any I had ever heard. I found when the
meal was over I had not taken a mouthful. Next we all went to the
College Church for the lecture, and on coming home we had an evening
lunch. All ate heartily but me. I ventured to tell one story, when Mr.
Fields clapped his hands and said, "Delightful." That was food to me! I
went to bed half starved, and only took enough breakfast to sustain life.
Before they left I had written down and committed to memory every
anecdote he had given. They have never been printed until now, and
you may be sure they are just as my hero told them. My only grief was
the appearance of my andirons. I invited our guests to the open fire
with pride, and the brass was covered with black and green--not a
gleam of shine.
Often Mr. Fields's jokes were on himself--as the opinion of a man in
the car seat just beyond him, as they happened to be passing Mr.
Fields's residence on the Massachusetts coast. The house was pointed
out on "Thunderbolt Hill" and his companion said, "How is he as a
lecturer?"
"Well," was the response, "he ain't Gough by a d----d sight."
How comically he told of a country druggist's clerk to whom he put the

query, "What is the most popular pill just now?" And the quick answer,
"Schenk's--they do say the Craowned Heads is all atakin' of 'em!"
Or the request