“Then it is not a made-up name? Well, we never thought it was real when we read your pieces; and we thought you were younger.” “I am sorry to disappoint you.” “Oh! You don’t disappoint me! I like the looks of you; only, people will have their ideas about poets.” A gentleman who had just been introduced to her was discussing the subject of names. He asked the derivation of her name; she told him that it was originally “Lark-Holme,” the home of the larks; then he said, “Is there not some one who takes your name, and writes poetry, calling herself ‘Lucy Larcom’? I never read any of the stuff.” In 1872, she did her first work of collaboration with Mr. Whittier. Conceiving the plan of printing a volume of poems dealing with the life of children, he secured her aid, and “Child-Life” was the first book which they produced in this way. He deferred to her judgment in the selection of the material, and, when doubtful, he always accepted her opinion. In sending her some poems for the collection, he wrote, “I leave thee to thy judgment; I think they will do, but I defer to thy wisdom.” Her name is thus associated with the happy hours of many children, who were, and are, brought up on the wholesome verses of this nursery book. “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Spider and the Fly,” and “Philip, my King,” with appropriate pictures, first became known to thousands of children, from this green-covered daily companion. “Child-Life in Prose” came as a natural sequel to child-life in poetry; and Hawthorne’s “Little Annie’s Ramble,” Lamb’s “Dream Children,” “The Ugly Duckling” of Hans Andersen, and “The Story without End,” were made familiar through the medium of its pages. Doubtless influenced by these publications, Miss Larcom decided to print, in a volume of her own, the children’s poems she had written, especially those for “Our Young Folks;” so in 1873 her “Childhood Songs” appeared. AMESBURY, November 25, 1874. DEAR FRIEND,--I have just been looking over the beautiful book of “Childhood Songs,” and my judgment is, that it is the best book of the kind I have ever seen. It has many poems, which, beside their adaptation to children, have a merit as lyrics, which I do not know where to look for in other collections of this sort. The heart is generally right in such books, but here head and heart are both satisfactory. We did not get up so good a book as this in our “Child-Life.” Thy friend, J. G. WHITTIER. TO MRS. MARY MAPES DODGE. BEVERLY FARMS, December 3, 1874. DEAR MRS. DODGE,--The publishers assure me that they sent you a copy of “Childhood’s Songs,” as I requested. I hope you received it, at last. I care to have you like it, as a lover of children, quite as much as to have it spoken of in the magazine. Your own little book must be nice; I hope to see it when I go to Boston.