When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet, was a boy, he lived in Portland, Maine. In those days Portland did much trading with the West Indies, and Henry and his boy friends liked to stay down at the wharves when the Portland vessels came in. It was sport to watch the burly negroes unload the hogsheads of molasses, the barrels of sugar, and the spices. The boys used to wish they were sailors or captains, so that they could sail across the water and perhaps have great adventures. Henry also thought it would suit him to be a soldier, and when he was five years old, and there was much talk about the great war which is called the War of 1812, he sent a letter to his father, who happened to be away at the time, that he had a toy gun already, and if his father would please buy him a drum, he would start right off for the battle-field. Probably he was not as warlike as he fancied he was, for one Fourth of July just after that, he jumped every time a cannon went off and begged his mother to stuff his ears with cotton, so that he would not hear the banging. Henry liked music and books far better than fighting. He read a great deal with his mother, and they took long walks together, for they both loved flowers and birds. Twice every Sunday Henry went to church with his mother. In the cold weather he carried her foot-stove for her (a funny little box which held coals) and in the summer her nosegay, because she never went to service, after the flowers began to bloom, without a bunch of sweet smelling blossoms. This odd foot-warmer can be seen any time in the old Wadsworth-Longfellow house in Portland. Visitors from all over the world, even from India and Turkey, have wandered through this home of the poet to look at the desk at which he wrote, the rich mahogany chairs, and the old-fashioned mirrors. Henry was willing to do errands or any tasks that his mother wished him to do. He did not mind even driving the cow to pasture, for as he walked along, he was usually making up rhymes. And although he had very good lessons in school, he often scribbled little jingles in his copy book. When he was thirteen, he told his sister that he was going to send a poem to the Portland newspaper. He did not tell any one but her, and he only signed "Henry" at the end of the poem, so although the editor printed it, the other school children did not find out for a long time that it was his. Henry and his sister read the printed verses until they wore the newspaper to shreds and felt they had a lovely secret.