Like many authors, Mr. Hay came into popularity almost by accident. Certainly he had no expectation of becoming prominent when he wrote his poem “Little Breeches;” yet that poem caused him to be remembered by a wider class of readers, perhaps, than anything else he has contributed to literature. The following account of how this poem came to be written was published after Mr. Hay’s appointment to the Court of St. James in 1897. The statement is given as made by Mr. A. L. Williams, an acquaintance of Mr. Hay, who lives in Topeka, Kansas, and knows the circumstances. “The fact is,” says Mr. Williams, “the poem ‘Little Breeches’ and its reception by the American people make it one of the most humorous features of this day. It was written as a burlesque, and for no other purpose. Bret Harte had inaugurated a maudlin literature at a time when the ‘litery’ people of the United States were affected with hysteria. Under the inspiration of his genius, to be good was commonplace, to be virtuous was stupid――only gamblers, murderers and women of ill fame were heroic. Crime had reached its apotheosis. John Hay believed that ridicule would help cure this hysteria, and thus believing, wrote the burlesque, ‘Little Breeches.’ Wanting to make the burlesque so broad that the commonest intellect could grasp it, he took for his hero an unspeakably wretched brat whom no angel would touch unless to drop over the walls into Tophet, and made him the object of a special angelic miracle. “Well, John sprung his ‘Little Breeches’ and then sat back with his mouth wide open to join in the laugh which he thought it would evoke from his readers. To his intense astonishment, people took it seriously, and instead of laughing Bret Harte out of the field, immediately made John Hay a formidable rival to that gentleman.” Next to “Little Breeches” the poem “Jim Bludso,” perhaps, contributed most to Mr. Hay’s reputation. Both of these selections will be found in the succeeding pages. * * * * * LITTLE BREECHES. I DON’T go much on religion, I never ain’t had no show; But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir, On the handful o’ things I know. I don’t pan out on the prophets And free-will, and that sort of thing―― But I b’lieve in God and the angels, Ever sence one night last spring. I come into town with some turnips, And my little Gabe come along―― No four-year-old in the county Could beat him for pretty and strong, Peart and chipper and sassy, Always ready to swear and fight―― And I’d learnt him to chaw terbacker Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.