A mutual friend had come to see him. Having ushered her into the garden room, he sat down with her and soon began to question her concerning this writer’s financial success. Finally, he said to the friend: “Thee tell F---- that I never made any money until I wrote ‘Snow Bound.’” XIX Nearly a score of years before the Civil War a dozen men and women at the invitation of that hospitable pair, Mr. and Mrs. Ashby of Newburyport, abolitionists, friends of William Lloyd Garrison, Whittier, and other abolitionists, drove one day in June to a beautiful spot on the Newbury shore of the Merrimac River. There, among the laurels in bloom, they inaugurated an outing which from that time for twenty-one years became annual. All the early members of this small party were abolitionists, despised and in a sense ostracized. They sought a day’s recreation by woods and water where earth and sky welcomed them. There, forgetful of hardships past and to come, they gathered at will the mountain laurel, the blooming of which they had assembled to celebrate. Little did they imagine how soon the laurels of a noble fame were to crown their labors for the slave. With the years, however, the original dozen of the first “Laurel Party” expanded into hundreds of guests, and the once unnoted recreation of the politically despised few became a social function to which invitation was eagerly sought. Whittier’s presence and his poem, when he wrote for the occasion, were no small part of the day’s enjoyment. Among these poems were “Our River,” “The Laurels,” and “Revisited.” * * * * * It was in 1865, at one of these later crowded Laurel parties, that the poet gave evidence of how--even in small things--he held his faith higher than men’s criticisms of his acts. A day in June. The heavens were full of soft clouds which in their brief shadowings seemed but to intensify the brilliance of the summer sunshine. Looming against the sky stood the high bluffs with their dark coronal of giant pines, their feet caressed by the murmuring kisses of New England’s most beautiful river. Under these pines was gathered a crowd of people through whose purpose of pleasure in the day and the scene ran the expectation of a deeper pleasure through the listening ear and the quick response of thought to thought. For they knew that Whittier had brought a poem. Many persons of reputation in the world of letters were there; many who ranked high in social life and some known to the world of politics. It was a gathering before which a man would desire to be at his best. Before it stood the poet who had well proved himself the inspired voice of the trees and the birds, the river and the sky. But all knew that at that time he had uttered a paean for the victory of Freedom and Union.