In its own wild, winsome way, the song of "Hiawatha's Childhood" is one of the prettiest fancies in poetry. It is a dream of babyhood in the "forest primeval," with Nature for nurse and teacher; and it makes us feel as if--were the poet's idea only a possibility--it might have been very pleasant to be a savage baby, although we consider it so much better to be civilized. How Longfellow loved the very little ones can be seen in such verses as the "Hanging of the Crane," and in those earlier lines "To a Child," where the baby on his mother's knee gazes at the painted tiles, shakes his "coral rattle with the silver bells," or escapes through the open door into the old halls where once "The Father of his country dwelt." Those verses give us a charming glimpse of the home-life in the historic mansion which is now so rich with poetic, as well as patriotic associations. How beautiful it was to be let in to that twilight library scene described in the "Children's Hour": "A sudden rush from the stair-way, A sudden raid from the hall! By three doors left unguarded, They enter my castle wall! "They climb up into my turret, O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me; They seem to be everywhere." Afterward, when sorrow and loss had come to the happy home, in the sudden removal of the mother of those merry children, the father who loved them so had a sadder song for them, as he looked onward into their orphaned lives: "O little feet, that such long years Must wander on, through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load, I, nearer to the wayside inn, Where toil shall cease, and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road!" [Illustration: LONGFELLOW'S HOUSE--ONCE WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS AT CAMBRIDGE] Longfellow loved all children, and had a word for them whenever he met them. At a concert, going early with her father, a little girl espied Mr. Longfellow sitting alone, and begged that she might go and speak to him. Her father, himself a stranger, took the liberty of introducing his little daughter Edith to the poet. "Edith?" said Mr. Longfellow, tenderly. "Ah! I have an Edith, too; but _my_ baby Edith is twenty years old." And he seated the child beside him, taking her hand in his, and making her promise to come and see him at his house in Cambridge. "What is the name of your sled, my boy?" he said to a small lad, who came tugging one up the road toward him, on a winter morning. "It's 'Evange_line_.' Mr. Longfellow wrote 'Evange_line_.' Did you ever see Mr. Longfellow?" answered the little fellow, as he ran by, doubtless wondering at the smile on the face of the pleasant gray-haired gentleman.