When in the days of his later fame he had that well-known meeting with the Emperor of Brazil, where Dom Pedro in the fashion of his country had embraced the poet, the company present after the Emperor’s departure began to rally the poet upon this form of greeting. But Whittier turned to his hostess with that gleam of fun in his eyes which his friends knew so well, and retorted, “That was meant for thee!” Unlike many persons, themselves apt, he enjoyed other people’s wit. It was worth a thousand miles’ journey to hear him say, “Capital! Capital!” accompanying the words and his laugh with that light blow of his hand upon his knee which was an exclamation point in pantomime. Such a gesture must have come into play when he learned Harriet Livermore’s reception of his description of herself in the “not unfeared, half welcome guest” of “Snow Bound.” She is said to have retorted, “He always was a saucy boy!” * * * * * There never came to him an episode more rich in the humor in which his soul delighted than came through an invitation which he once received. Sitting on the sofa in the garden room where so many in distinguished walks of life had paid honor to the poet, a young man from a neighboring town, a self-made man--so far as his creation had progressed, and, as the saying is, proud of his maker--discoursed with insistence concerning a Republican Convention to be held in the West, and urged the poet to accompany him there. In vain Whittier opposed his want of strength to meet such a strain, and gave other reasons also. As if the poet had not spoken, the other reiterated his arguments, and wound up with this climax: “I know, Mr. Whittier,” urged this self-making young person to the man who as one of the founders of the Republican party was held by its leaders in especial honor, “that you are a very shy man and shrink from meeting strangers. But I shall be there to introduce you.” As the poet told of this episode, his eyes shone with fun and his tone had an unction which he would not allow his words to express. * * * * * Whittier’s delight in fun was to him the sunshine of his many dreary winter days. It is told of him that, in his thirties, he one day walked into the old Rocky Hill school house at Salisbury Point while the school was in session, and to the astonishment of the children and the amusement of the teacher who afterward explained to them that this was John Greenleaf Whittier, he sat himself down on the little low seat in front--the dunce’s seat, or the rogue’s seat as it was then called--a bench which in his boyhood he could never have occupied. Who knows that the poem, “In School Days,” which he wrote so long afterward did not come into his heart at that time? IX