The home of Whittier was in a country district, and to this day no roof is in sight from the old homestead. The house, considerably more than a hundred years old at the time of the poet's birth, was built by his great-great-grandfather. The Whittiers were mostly stalwart men, six feet in height, who lived out their three-score years and ten; but the poet, though his years were more than any of his immediate ancestors, fell a little short of the family stature, and was of slender frame. "Snow-bound" gives us a faithful picture of the Whittier homestead and household, as they were eighty years ago. The life they lived there was one utterly without luxury, and with few means of culture. There were perhaps thirty hooks in the house, largely Quaker tracts and journals. Of course there was the Bible, and through all his poetry Whittier reverts to the Bible for phrases and images as naturally as Longfellow turns to mediaeval legend. Memorable were the evenings when the school teacher came and read to the family from books he brought with him,--one most memorable, when the book was a copy of Burns. On Whittier's first visit to Boston, an occasion honored by his wearing "boughten buttons" on his homespun coat, and a broad-brim hat made by his aunt out of pasteboard covered with drab velvet, he purchased a copy of Shakespeare. He attended the district school a few weeks each winter, and when he was nineteen he completed his scanty education with a year at an academy at Haverhill. From the time when the reading of Burns woke the poet in him, he was constantly writing rhymes, covering his slate with them, and sometimes copying them out painstakingly on paper. Without Whittier's knowledge, his sister sent one of his poems to a paper in a neighboring town. The Editor became interested in his contributor and, as the story goes, drove out to the country home and Whittier was called in from the field to meet the smart young newspaper man. Thus began his literary career. He became an Editor in Boston and later in Hartford, but the work proving too trying for his delicate health, he returned to the farm. Meanwhile, he was contributing verse to the newspapers. During this time he was elected to the Legislature of Massachusetts and had some prospects of being nominated for Congress. Later in life he returned again and again to the purely lyrical notes which he had taken up in his youth.