Occasionally, to suit her own convenience, she would have his breakfast prepared; but if she mentioned this fact while helping him to dress he would invariably say, "Ah! I will not eat anything for awhile." When the dishes had been set aside to be kept warm, and Mary was again busily engaged,--the wash perhaps partly hung on the line, or her deft hands in the dough,--the peremptory signal would come, and on being helped down and seated at the table he would coolly demand something entirely different from what she had provided. He commenced housekeeping by inviting company--lord or beggar--to dine with him, and would keep these guests at the table for hours; even "when he was eating off a dry goods box for a table, and drinking milk warmed over a coal oil lamp, and a few crackers with it, he would ask you to dine, with the dignity of a prince, and never apologize or mention the food." (_Thomas Donaldson._) A biographer (_Horace Traubel_) says, "He was very simple in his tastes, taking only two meals in a day." True; but the day was nearly consumed in getting and serving these two meals, with the after work that followed. To Mrs. Davis's surprise he did not hesitate to entertain visitors in his sleeping room if they arrived while he was there, and many of them would remain until "the wee sma' hours." There was a charm in fellowship with him, and ill and lethargic as he had grown, it was said: "Walt Whitman's friends rarely visited him without having a good laugh over something or other"; and "gifted with a clear resonant voice, the poet often gratifies his friends as he sits by a blazing wood fire--which is his delight--singing old-fashioned songs." It was this irregularity that had worn upon his sister-in-law, for during the years in which she had endured Walt's thoughtlessness, she had had the care of Edward, the irresponsible, feeble-minded brother; and when, by the doctor's advice, she left Camden for the country, the home was tendered to Walt with this option: he was to conform to their way of living and cease turning night into day. He did indeed have "runs of luck" after 1884, and who can deny that the greatest of these was in securing the undivided attention of a warm-hearted, unselfish woman, and in her making it possible for him to live untrammelled, in his own home? Surely the tide turned when this good woman ceased to be an independent being and became the strong prop on which he leaned; a shield between him and all annoyances. While perplexed with settling the house, and having no time to go over the same ground twice, although the condition of the parlors troubled her, Mrs. Davis had let them go, awaiting a favorable time to clean and regulate them thoroughly. This opportunity came in the summer, during the first of Mr. Whitman's temporary absences.