For an instant Nathan was dumbfounded. Had he heard aright? The boy fought off his vertigo and stared. Was the old man jesting? But apparently Old Caleb was never more serious in his life. Moreover, he too was confused, as though chagrined by the confession. Nathan would have accepted that his employer had speared grizzlies, kicked over baby carriages, fired orphan asylums and kicked the crutches from cripples. But a poet! It was cataclysmic. “Did you—did you—ever write any poetry?” “Once!” “What for? What came of it?” “That was a perty good piece you started to write when Plumb interrupted you. Jake gimme the book. Then again, my wife lemme see a piece you writ and give to my daughter a while back. You seem to be a perty good poet. I’ll show you somethin’.” To Nathan’s utter bewilderment, Caleb went to the green box safe. He selected an old wallet from its cavernous compartments and returned to his creaking seat. With his elbows on his enormous knees, he leaned forward. He went through the wallet until he came to a paper he sought. He drew it out with sausage-like fingers, a sheet of rusty, mildewed parchment on which some verses had been written in violet ink. Reverently he handed it across as though it were a million-dollar government bond. Nathan read: “To G. H. “Your eyes are like the twinkling stars. Your voice is like the dew I sit upon the hill and dream Of you, my love, of you. “You are the inspiration of my life To you I will ever be true When I am old and my hair is gray I’ll ever think of you. “All of us have a secret love Some, memories of yesterday, Like cake to finish a good square meal It cheers us on our way. —CALEB GRIDLEY.” Paris, Vt., June 2, 1871. The old man watched the youth’s face closely as he read. There was pathetic anxiety in the question which followed: “Well,” demanded Caleb, “what’s your opinion? There was folks said it was good enough to have published—once! But I couldn’t—I couldn’t!” The tanner sighed and arose. He walked to the window looking down on the cluttered yard. There he stuck his big hands in his stomach pockets and “rolled his chew.” With the tactlessness of boyhood, Nathan announced, “The meter’s off and besides—it doesn’t really say anything—that is, in a nice smooth way.” If he had struck old Caleb with a rock he could not have surprised the tanner more dynamically. “Don’t say anything! Smooth way! Meter? What’s meter?” “In poetry it’s the character of a stanza. It’s made up of any given number of lines, divided into measures equal in time—and length of syllables—and rhythmic construction.” “Well, I’ll be damned!” cried Caleb. “Where did you learn that—them big words and all?”