WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET

BY ELIZABETH LEAVITT KELLER

"There's this little street and this little house"
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

328 MICKLE STREET
FROM A PAINTING [1908] BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET
ELIZABETH LEAVITT KELLER

NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
MCMXXI

COPYRIGHT 1921 BY
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK

[EDITOR'S NOTE]

ELIZABETH LEAVITT KELLER was born at Buffalo, N. Y., on November 3, 1839. Both her parents were descended from the first settlers of this country, and each in turn came to Buffalo in its early days, her mother, Sarah Ellis, by private conveyance in 1825, and her father, James S. Leavitt, by way of the newly opened Erie Canal in 1834.

Elizabeth was the second daughter. In the spring of 1841 she was taken to Niagara Falls, and all her childhood recollections are clustered around that place. Returning to Buffalo in 1846, her father opened a book-bindery, and later added a printing office and stationery store.

At nineteen years of age Elizabeth Leavitt was married to William Wallace Keller, of Little Falls, N. Y. Seven years later she became a widow.

Her natural instinct for nursing was developed during the Civil War and the years that followed, but the time and opportunity for professional training did not come until 1876, when, her two children being provided for, she was free to apply for admission to the school for nurses connected with the Women's Hospital in Philadelphia—one of the three small training schools then existing in the United States.

Before her course was finished her younger sister died. Mrs. Keller left the hospital to take care of the five motherless children, and it was not until ten years later that she was free to resume her training. When she graduated she was a grandmother—the only one, it need scarcely be said, in the class.

While nursing her patient, Walt Whitman, during his last illness, she learnt much about his personality and home life, and much also about his unselfish friend and housekeeper, Mrs. Davis. The desire to tell the truth about the whole case—so often misunderstood or distorted—grew stronger with the passing years, and finally Mrs. Keller entered an old ladies' home in her own city, where she would have leisure to carry out her design. Here the book was commenced and completed. "After numerous struggles and disappointments," she writes, "my second great desire—to set Mrs. Davis in her true light—has been fulfilled—this time by a great-grandmother!"

It is not often that a great-grandmother, after a long life of service to others, sees her first book published on her eighty-second birthday.

Mrs. Keller uses her pen as if she were twenty or thirty years younger. Her letters are simple but cheery, her outlook on life contented but in no way obscured. Not deliberately, but through a natural gift, she conveys vivid impressions of the world as it now appears to her, just as she conveys so unpretentiously but unforgettably in her book the whole atmosphere of Walt Whitman's world, when it had been narrowed to the little frame house in Mickle Street, and finally to a bed of suffering in one room of that little house.

Whatever else her book may be, it is an extraordinary instance of revelation through simplicity; the picture stands out with all its details, not as a work of conscious art, but assuredly as a work that the artist, the student of life and of human nature, will be glad to have.

Charles Vale

[PREFACE]

HAD it ever occurred to me that the time might come when I should feel impelled to write something in regard to my late patient, Walt Whitman, I should have taken care to be better prepared in anticipation; would have kept a personal account, jotted down notes for my own use, observed his visitors more closely, preserved all my correspondence with Dr. Bucke, and recorded items of more or less interest that fade from memory as the years go by. Still, I have my diary, fortunately, and can be true to dates.

After I had been interviewed a number of times, and had answered various questions to the best of my knowledge and belief, I was surprised to see several high-flown articles published, all based on the meagre information I had furnished, and all imperfect and unsatisfactory.

Interviewers seemed to look for something beyond me; to wait expectantly in the hope that I could recall some unusual thing in Mr. Whitman's eccentricities that I alone had observed; words that I alone had heard him speak; opinions and beliefs I alone had heard him express; anything remarkable, not before given to the public. They wanted the sensational and exclusive, if possible. I suppose that was natural.

But it set me thinking that if my knowledge was of any value or interest to others, why not write a truthful story myself, instead of having my words enlarged upon, changed and perverted? Simple facts are surely better than hasty exaggerations.

I have done what I could. One gentleman (Mr. James M. Johnston, of Buffalo), who has read the manuscript, and for whose opinion I have the greatest regard, remarked as he returned it: "It appears to me that your main view in writing this was to exonerate Mrs. Davis."

He had discovered a fact I then recognized to be the truth.

My greatest fear is that I may have handled the whole truth too freely—without gloves.

E. L. K.

CONTENTS

WALT WHITMAN
IN MICKLE STREET

I write this book
in loving memory of
three of the most kind-hearted,
unselfish and capable people I ever knew
I Dedicate It
to
ALEX. McALISTER, M.D.

HALCYON DAYS

WALT WHITMAN IN MICKLE STREET

I

MARY OAKES DAVIS

"She hath wrought a good work on me.... This also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her."—St. Mark XIV: 6, 9.

"Whitman with the pen was one man—Whitman in private life was another man."—Thomas Donaldson.

SOMEONE has said: "A veil of silence, even mystery, seems to have shut out from view the later home life of Walt Whitman."

There is no reason for this, but if it be really so, the veil cannot be lifted without revealing in a true light the good woman—Mary Oakes Davis—so closely connected with the poet's later years, and of whom he often spoke as "my housekeeper, nurse and friend."

Mrs. Davis's life from the cradle to the grave was one of self-sacrifice and devotion to others. Her first clear recollection was of a blind old woman to whom her parents had given a home. In speaking of this she said: "I never had a childhood, nor did I realize that I had the right to play like other children, for at six years of age 'Blind Auntie' was my especial charge. On waking in the morning my first thought was of her, and then I felt I must not lie in bed another minute. I arose quickly, made my own toilet and hastened to her." She continued with a detailed account of the attention daily given to "Auntie," how she put on her stockings and shoes, and handed her each article of clothing as it was needed; how she brought fresh water for her ablutions, combed her hair and made her presentable for the table; how at all meals she sat by her side to wait upon her, and how, after helping her mother with the dishes, she walked up and down the sidewalk until schooltime to give "Auntie" her exercise, the walks being repeated when school was over.

It seems strange that parents could permit such sacrifice for an outsider, however helpless, unmindful of their injustice toward the little daughter who so willingly and unconsciously yielded up her young life. No wonder this lesson of utter devotion to another, so early implanted in the tender heart of the child, should in after years become part and parcel of the woman.

When Mary was twelve years of age "Blind Auntie" died. Then came two more years of schooling, after which the girl voluntarily assumed another burden—the care of a melancholy, selfish invalid, a distant relative living in the country, of whom she had heard much from time to time. With her she stayed for six years, being in turn nurse, companion, housekeeper or general servant, as need required.

Poor child, she failed in brightening the invalid's life—which was her only hope in going there. All her efforts were unappreciated and misunderstood, and it was a hard task to follow out what she conceived to be her duty. During the first four years her sole remuneration was a small sum of money on rare occasions, or a few articles of clothing; during the last two, a modest monthly salary. The entire period was one of unremitting care and self-abnegation, and at the age of twenty, utterly disheartened, she summoned up resolution to leave.

She had long contemplated paying a visit to an old schoolmate and dear friend, Mrs. Fritzinger, the wife of a sea-captain, whose home was in Camden, New Jersey, and to this city she now went. Arriving, to her great sorrow she found her friend in a serious physical condition, and remained to nurse her through a protracted illness, which ended fatally. On her deathbed Mrs. Fritzinger confided her two young sons to Mary's care, and from this time on they called her mother.

Captain Fritzinger soon became blind and had to give up the sea. He still however retained marine interests in Philadelphia, to and from which city Mary led him daily. Then came a long illness. The Captain appointed Mary co-guardian to his two sons, and at his death divided his property equally between the three.

Captain Davis, a friend of the Fritzingers, had met Mary during Mrs. Fritzinger's lifetime. He was much attracted to her, proposed marriage and was accepted on condition that the wedding should not take place as long as her friends had need of her. But time slipped by; it may be Captain Davis thought their need of her would never end; so, meeting her in Philadelphia one morning, he insisted upon their going to a minister's and becoming man and wife. Mary, thus forcefully pressed, consented, but exacted the promise that he would not tell the Fritzingers until his return from the trip he was on the eve of taking.

In a few days he left Camden. His vessel was wrecked off the coast of Maine, and he was buried where he washed ashore.

His hasty marriage and unlooked-for death prevented him from making the intended provision for his wife, and as she shrank from any contest with his family, all that was left to her was his name and the cherished memory of her one brief love.

During Captain Fritzinger's nine years of blindness, and through all his long sickness, Mary's ingrained habit of devotion to one person made her somewhat forgetful of others; and dearly as she loved the boys who called her mother, their happiness was too often sacrificed to their father's infirmities. Strange—and yet not strange, perhaps—that one whose childhood had been an unbroken martyrdom, should now be not always conscious of the needs of a new generation.

The house in which they lived, in a little street running at right angles to Stevens Street, was closed at dusk. Then, when she had read the daily papers, Mary would extinguish the lights, feeling that to read to herself, or for the boys to play games, would be selfish, as the sick man was deprived of such enjoyments. It didn't occur to her that these wide-awake youngsters had nothing of her own childhood spirit of resignation, or that the noise and laughter of other boys frolicking in the streets could have any attraction for them. They were sent early to bed, but time and again made their escape through the window, creeping along the shed, and so to the fence and the street.

Both boys had an innate love for the sea, and at the age of fourteen and sixteen respectively had become so restless and urgent for a change, that their father yielded to their wishes and procured berths for them aboard the same ship. In two years they returned to find him dead, and in a short time they embarked again in separate vessels and for longer voyages.

During their first absence, Captain Fritzinger had invited another ex-captain—an old shipmate and intimate friend—to come to his house to board, and for mutual companionship. The new guest was in poor health and extremely crotchety, and immediately upon his host's demise he took possession of the bed left empty. Then ensued for Mrs. Davis two more years of fidelity and constant care, until the one old shipmate went the way of the other.

But even now the long-tried woman was not left without someone to minister to, for shortly before a young orphan girl had been entrusted to her. It was certainly her destiny to find full scope for the spirit of self-sacrifice so early implanted, and so persistently called upon. But it was almost inevitable for such a nature to be unconscious of the vein of irony in human affairs, of the element of the grotesque in the sublime. She went quietly on her accustomed way. It was her vocation to be victimized, and her daily business to be a blessing to others.

Such was the woman who entered so closely into Walt Whitman's life during the seven years spent in Mickle Street. She meant more to him than he was perhaps aware of; more, certainly, than he ever cared to admit. If she was incapable of realizing the fulness of his genius, he seemed unable to measure the fulness of hers. But he was glad to profit by it.

II

WALT WHITMAN'S HOME

"And whether I come into my own to-day or in ten thousand or in ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait."—Walt Whitman.

"I only thought if I didn't go, who would?"—Mary O. Davis.

AFTER physical disability had incapacitated him for duty, Walt Whitman went to Camden, the New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, and there the remaining years of his life were spent, at first in his brother's house in Stevens Street and later in a little frame cottage, No. 328 Mickle Street, "where he lived alone with a single attendant," as a magazine writer phrased it. This attendant was Mary Oakes Davis.

With but one exception (Thomas Donaldson, in "Walt Whitman the Man"), all writers who have touched upon Whitman's domestic life seem to have failed to mention the interval between his two Camden homes. Fortunately it was of short duration, but in it came the great turning point in his career.

Of his early habits something may be learned from his brother George, who says: "Wait was always a trying person to live with." ("In Re Walt Whitman.") Then he goes on to relate some of the poet's peculiarities, irregularities and eccentricities. "He had an idea that money was of no consequence.... He would lie abed late, would write a few hours if he took the notion, perhaps would go off for the rest of the day. If we had dinner at one, like as not he would come at three; always late. Just as we were fixing things on the table he would get up and go around the block. He was always so.

"He would come to breakfast when he got ready. If he wished to go out, he would go, go where he was a mind to, and come back in his own time."

It cannot be denied that a person with these traits of character would be an uncomfortable inmate to have in any home, and with Mr. Whitman this disregard for the convenience of others grew more marked as he advanced in years and deteriorated in body. Notwithstanding this, when his good brother and his most excellent sister-in-law retired to their farm in Burlington, New Jersey, they urged him to accompany them.

Their kind offer of a home Mr. Whitman thought best to decline, for although at this time he had but a restricted popularity as an author, he had some staunch friends in his own city, in New York, Philadelphia and abroad, and after twelve years' residence in one locality he thought it unwise to change.

No doubt he did not take into consideration the difficulties he would have to encounter alone, nor realize how unfitted he was to cope with them; but as usual he overruled all opposition and followed his own inclination.

Or he may have had a premonition of the popularity just at hand.

First he rented a room, taking his meals at odd times and in odd places. This he soon found to be a miserable mode of existence, for he was crippled financially as well as physically, and even to this late day, "his medium of circulating his views to the world was through very limited editions, which he himself usually paid for, or which failed to circulate at all." (Thomas Donaldson.)

The old man with his basket of literature upon his arm, plodding his way through the streets of Camden and Philadelphia, had long been a familiar sight, and now with slow sales and lack of former comforts it was doubly hard on him. But at this time his life had settled down to one great desire, that of rewriting his book, Leaves of Grass, and living to see it put before the world in a full, improved and complete form.

He believed it was to be, and this was his principal object in remaining in a city where he had already suffered the delays and disappointments that make the heart sick and wear out the body. Yet dark as was the outlook, this hope buoyed him up, and after the struggles of half a century his courage had not forsaken him.

"In the period named, he was hungry, cold and neglected," says Donaldson; and again: "Whitman was extremely poor in Camden after his brother moved away, and up to about 1884. His change of luck began about then. He had previously, to use a sailor's phrase, 'been scudding under bare poles.' He had several runs of luck after 1884."

Walt Whitman and Mrs. Davis were not personally acquainted. To be sure, he had seen her innumerable times leading Captain Fritzinger past his brother's house, but he had never spoken to her. As for her, the poor old man had long been a secret pensioner upon her tender heart, drawing a full bounty of pity therefrom.

Their first interview took place on one cold frosty morning, when in deepest dejection he came a suppliant to her door. Surprised as she was to find him there, she warmly invited him in, and a good breakfast soon followed the kind reception.

With his writings she was totally unacquainted, and she naturally shared the universal opinion of her neighbors, that he was "a little off." Nevertheless, when from the grateful warmth and good cheer he grew loquacious, and dilated upon his work and aired his lofty hopes, she listened attentively, that he might not suspect that to her all this seemed but an empty dream and delusion.

She talked encouragingly, and on his rising to go cordially invited him to repeat his visit. He did so, and thenceforward this compassionate woman's homely kitchen became his one haven of rest. He knew that a hot meal and many thoughtful attentions always awaited him there; attentions such as lacing his shoes, washing and mending his clothing, and not infrequently superintending a refreshing foot-bath. "Being an invalid he felt his helplessness, so attentions were doubly dear to him." (Thomas Donaldson.)

As the fall advanced and the weather grew severe, his bachelor quarters became more and more unsuitable, and he was indeed fortunate in the friendship he had so auspiciously formed. He developed into a daily visitor, and each morning might have been seen scuffing along in his unclasped antiquated arctics, cane in hand, and his long white hair and beard blowing in the wind.

Mrs. Davis said that the very sight of those ungainly old arctics always brought tears to her eyes.

During this winter (1884-5), through the generosity of a Philadelphian (Mr. George W. Childs), and from the sale of his book, Mr. Whitman was in a way to arrange for a payment upon a small house. He was not the man to ask advice, and the selection he made was not a wise one. "It was a coop at best," as Thomas Donaldson says, and a much more comfortable home in a far more suitable location could have been secured for less than the price he had agreed to pay. However, it promised him a regular abiding place.

The house being occupied when he became the owner, he made an arrangement with the tenants: they were to remain, and he would come there to live with them, his board to offset the rent. But the scheme did not work, and at the expiration of the first month he was left solitary and alone with his personal household goods, consisting of a scantily furnished bedstead, a home-made table, a rickety chair and a large packing box. The table served as writing desk and the packing box as kitchen and dining table. "Upon it was a small coal oil stove, where he would cook a bite at the risk of his life." (Thomas Donaldson.)

His daily visits to Mrs. Davis were resumed. Her back door would slowly open and he would appear saying in a pathetic voice: "Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, whose trembling limbs have brought him to your door." He was always welcomed and former relations were renewed.

This continued for awhile, but light housekeeping being so great a tax upon him, and his house being so "forlorn, dirty and untenantable," (Thomas Donaldson), Mrs. Davis went there with him in his perplexity.

How could the place be anything but cold when it was heated only by the occasional flame of an oil lamp? Worse still, the back door was held partly open by an accumulation of ice resulting from a ruptured water pipe.

Seeing how matters stood, Mrs. Davis, at that time a "strong, rosy-cheeked Jersey woman" (Thomas Donaldson), went to work with a will, and the ice was rapidly dispersed by her vigorously wielded axe. With the door closed things soon assumed a more cheerful aspect, and at her suggestion Mr. Whitman purchased a small second-hand cooking stove, which, unassisted, she set up and got into running order. She carpeted his sleeping room, gave him a mattress and bedding, and in many other ways helped to make "the coop," as Whitman himself called it, more habitable and homelike. Then, unmindful of the distance—several blocks—she came each evening to attend to the fire, cook the food, run the invalid's errands and wait upon him generally.

In speaking of this time she said: "When the poor old man was not in sight, he was so much upon my mind I could not pass one peaceful hour." Suffice it to say, Walt Whitman had become the next object of her solicitude.

He has been called a prophet. Was it prophetical when, some years before, he wrote: "Though poor now even to penury, I have not been deprived of any physical thing I need or wish for whatever, and I feel confident I shall not in the future"?

Some have considered him a cunning man; all agree that he was a remarkable judge of character. Understanding this woman as he did,—as he must have done,—had he resolved to have her devote herself to him? This question can never be truthfully answered, but whether with premeditation or not, he certainly had gained a great influence over her.

Although comparatively comfortable in his new home now, he did not discontinue his accustomed morning visits, and as he persisted in his old delinquencies he completely upset the routine of Mrs. Davis's daily life and work.

Things ran on in this way until one morning late in February, while he was sipping his coffee, he told her he had a proposition to make. He said: "I have a house while you pay rent; you have furniture while my rooms are bare; I propose that you come and live with me, bringing your furniture for the use of both." A suggestion of this kind was so unlooked for that she refused to give it a moment's consideration. He said no more at the time, but a few days later again broached the subject. And this he continued to do daily until Mrs. Davis, who remained firm for awhile, at last began to waver.

The young orphan girl strongly opposed such a step, but Mr. Whitman's persistence prevailed, for Mrs. Davis at last gave a reluctant consent. The advantage was all on the poet's side, as he must have seen, but recent events had raised his hopes and he made promises of adequate and more than adequate returns for all that had been done or might be done for him.

As his money was "only in sight," to use his own words, the expenses of moving were paid by Mrs. Davis; as he was disabled, the work and worry were hers as well; but finally all was accomplished, her goods were transferred to his house and put in their new places, and the seven years of their domestic life together commenced. In this way did the "good gray poet" retire with his "single attendant" to the little frame cottage, No. 328 Mickle Street, Camden, New Jersey.

III

THE MICKLE STREET HOUSE

"The tide turned when he entered the Mickle Street house."—Thomas Donaldson.

"Whitman had great satisfaction in the managing skill of his housekeeper."—Sidney Morse.

ADDED to "managing skill," Mrs. Davis had patience, perseverance, determination, courage and health; furthermore—having accompanied the Fritzinger family upon a number of ocean trips, undertaken in the hope of benefiting Mrs. Fritzinger—she had shipboard experience which enabled her to make available every inch of space in a house smaller than the one she had left. It was an unpretentious brown frame structure, sadly out of repair, and decidedly the poorest tenement in the block. On the right was a brick house whose strong walls seemed to be holding it up, while on the left was an alley—scarcely more than a gutter—closed from the street by a wooden door.

This narrow passage, filled with ice and snow in the winter, often damp and slippery even in warm weather, was unfit for general use; and as the house was not properly drained, the cellar through its one little window was often flooded from dripping eaves.

Three wooden steps without a banister led from the sidewalk to the front door, which had to be closed to allow those who entered to ascend the stairs. This narrow staircase, an equally narrow hall and two connecting rooms called "the parlors" comprised the first floor of the main building. Between the parlors were folding doors, and each room had an exit into the hall. There were two windows in the front parlor and a single one in the back. Between and under the front windows was an entrance to the cellar, with old-fashioned slanting doors.

The rear and smaller portion of the house was divided into but two apartments, the kitchen below and a sleeping room above. At the back of the kitchen was a small shed, and quite a large yard. Some people believed that this yard, with its pear tree and grape vine, had been the main attraction of the place for Mr. Whitman.

On ascending the staircase, a small landing and the back sleeping room were reached; then, turning about, came more stairs, with a larger landing, part of which had been made into a clothespress. Apart from this landing and a little den, sometimes known as "the anteroom," the upper portion of the main building had only one room. But the two doors in it, and a deep rugged scar across the low ceiling, testified to its having formerly been divided by a partition. As one of the doors was permanently fastened, the only access was through the den, anteroom, or "adjoining apartment," as it was also occasionally called.

In the larger room was a fireplace with a mantel shelf above. There were two windows corresponding with the windows below, while the smaller room or den, reduced to one-half its proper width by some pine shelves and an outjutting chimney, had like the room below but one. The outlook from this window, into which the sun made but a few annual peeps, was the brick wall on one side, the back roof on the other, and a glimpse of the sky.

The situation of the house was anything but inviting, and the locality was one that few would choose to live in. It was near both depot and ferry, and as the tracks were but a block away, or scarcely that, being laid in what would have been the centre of the next street, there was an uninterrupted racket day and night. The noise of the passenger and excursion trains—for the excursions to the coast went by way of Camden—was only a minor circumstance compared with that of the freight trains as they thundered by, or passed and re-passed in making up.

Close at hand was a church with a sharp-toned bell, and a "choir of most nerve-unsettling singers" (Thomas Donaldson); and as if this were not enough, there was at times a most disagreeable odor from a guano factory on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware.

Such was the house to which Mary Davis had now come, and where through the strange, busy days of the next seven years she was destined to be Walt Whitman's indispensable "housekeeper, nurse and friend"—or, from the outsider's point of view, his "single attendant."

The spring of 1885 was far advanced before things were fairly in running order, for from the first there had been no intermission in the poet's erratic mode of living, and Mrs. Davis had been obliged to devote much time to his personal wants. Somehow he had a way of demanding attention which she found it impossible to resist.

Truly she had been hampered on all sides, this faithful Martha-Mary; so many things to be seen to, so many things to handle and rehandle and change about before an established place for them could be found; the strenuous cleaning, for the former tenants had left the place extremely dirty; and the pondering over repairs, and deciding which were absolutely essential and unpostponable, and which could be put off for a little while longer.

She first carpeted, furnished and settled the parlors, intending the back one as the sleeping room for her young charge, until her marriage in the fall, when it could be used as a spare room. But Mr. Whitman had different intentions, for he at once appropriated both rooms, and would not allow the doors separating them to be closed.

One of the front windows became his favorite sitting place, and here he wrote, read his papers and sat while entertaining his friends. He was delighted with these rooms, and in them he enjoyed himself to his heart's content: first in getting things into disorder at once, and then in keeping them so.

The back room, which became kitchen, dining room and sitting room combined, was so compactly filled that many people remarked its close resemblance to the cabin of a ship, in the way of convenience as compared with space. It was lighted by one window, and over the ingrain carpet a strip of stair carpeting made a pathway from the hall to the outer door.

On the sitting room side were a lounge, sewing machine, two rocking chairs, a stand and some small pieces of furniture; on the other was a dining table against the wall, one leaf extended and always set, with the dining chairs pushed under it when not in use; the range—a veritable giant—standing in place of the dwarf it had ousted; a sink with cubby-hole below, crowded to overflowing with pots and kettles, and shelves above loaded with dishes while their enclosing doors were closely hung with kitchen utensils. As the lower shelf only could be reached by hand, a stool (a chair that had lost its back) was kept under a projection of the range.

The shed, where Mr. Whitman's stove was set up, was packed with household goods and chattels, classified and stored ready for momentary use, and around the walls were suspended the extra chairs.

A shelf in the inside cellarway off the hall was the only pantry, and the sides of the cellarway the only tin-cupboard; then for want of a place for the flour barrel, it was left standing opposite the cellar door in the hall. In this part of the house people went by feeling, not by sight, and strangers as a rule always collided with the barrel before entering the kitchen.

The little passage between the back part of the house and the wall of the one adjoining it—simply a pathway to the back entrance of the cellar—Mrs. Davis canopied with old sails and utilized as a laundry. Here she kept her washing bench, tubs and pails, and here she washed and ironed when the weather permitted. This furnished the view from the back parlor window.

The cellar and its hanging shelf had their share of plunder, and here the firewood was sawed and split.

As for pictures, there were more than enough for all the rooms, and between them wall pockets, paper racks and brackets abounded.

Her family of birds—a robin she had rescued from a cat, a pair of turtle doves and a canary—she attached to the kitchen ceiling. She made a little place in the shed for her cat's bed, and found a shelter for a few hens in the small outhouse. Her dog, more aristocratic, slept on the lounge.

On a shelf over the dining table were a clock, some china vases, and a stuffed parrakeet. No wonder that upon entering the house the first thing observed was the over-filled appearance of each small room.

Upon a bracket in the front parlor she placed a model of a ship that had been given to Captain Fritzinger by the maker. This pleased Mr. Whitman exceedingly, for he had often noticed and admired it. He said that the first time he had desired to write anything was when he saw a ship in full sail. He tried to describe it exactly and failed; had often since studied ships in the vain hope of getting the whole beautiful story into words, but had never been able to do so.

The mantels of both parlors Mrs. Davis heaped with shells and curiosities from distant parts of the world. Some of them were rare and valuable.

Such was the inside of the house after it had passed through Mary's transforming hands. There were many things in it that might have been better elsewhere, perhaps. But where? It was only a little house, and Mary had come to it from a larger one, with all her possessions. She had nowhere else to put them now, without losing them. If Mr. Whitman had any sense of being over-crowded, it was his own fault. She had come at his urging—and he had taken the two large parlors on the first floor, and the large front chamber with the anteroom above, entirely for his own use, thus leaving for the two women the kitchen (which he shared with them in its aspect of dining room) and the only remaining room in the house—the little back chamber on the second floor. Into this, they condensed and squeezed their more personal belongings.

IV

THE NEW RÉGIME

"I know an old story. It goes back to 1826, when a monument to Bellman, the Swedish poet, was unveiled in Stockholm. The King and Queen were there, and Bellman's old wife. And the King spoke of the dead poet, and praised him in a flight of purple phrases; but the old wife said, 'Oh yes, but if your Majesty only knew what a nuisance he was about the house....' But frankly, wouldn't you like to know what kind of a nuisance the poet was at home?"—Vance Thompson.

DISCOVERING so quickly that her new charge was decidedly a self-centered person, and seeing that waiting upon him promised to be her chief occupation, Mrs. Davis planned her work accordingly, and being an early riser was able to devote the untrammelled morning hours to preparations for the day.

Mr. Whitman usually arose at nine o'clock, but in this, as in all things, he consulted his own wishes alone. His breakfast hour was any time during the forenoon; and no doubt he did not understand how or why this could discommode his new housekeeper.

When the signal came—one that Mrs. Davis soon learned, three or four loud peremptory raps upon the floor above—she dropped whatever she might be doing and hastened upstairs.

Since Mr. Whitman's first stroke of paralysis, nearly twenty years before, he had become so disabled that he required much assistance while dressing, and for this he was not at all diffident in asking. Besides, he was "very curiously deliberate."

There being no water on the second floor, Mrs. Davis carried up and down all that he needed for his baths,—and he used water freely. Then when fully dressed he consulted his own feelings in regard to coming downstairs.

In his mother's house in Long Island, and in his brother's in Camden, Walt had seldom taken his meals with the family. While living in Brooklyn, New Orleans and Washington, his meal times were of no importance to anyone except himself, and he could not see why this rule should not apply to his own house, or any house where he might be staying. To him regular meals were a bondage he could not endure.

Going up and down stairs was a difficult task, and after coming to the Mickle Street house he seldom did so unaided, so the old signal was repeated when he was ready to descend, and again Mrs. Davis hastened to him.

As he never would tell what he wanted until he was seated at the table, she always kept a supply of special things on hand; nothing elaborate,—maybe steak, chops, oysters or eggs. He never found fault with his food, and although he did not often commend it he must have been fully appreciative, for all through his letters and conversations, as given in the various books about him, are allusions to Mary's good cooking.

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.

Since he had been in his own house, old friends had occasionally called to take him to spend the day with them. This time he was asked to remain a week. He gladly availed himself of the change, and his housekeeper was no less pleased to have a week to herself. In it she did her best to restore order, and when she had finished was really proud of the improvement she had effected.

Mr. Whitman returned. He at once discovered what had taken place during his absence, and his consternation knew no bounds! He said that he had left everything exactly as he wished it to remain; where he could find it; now the very things he needed most were gone; in fact he could find nothing he wanted, and in the future he forbade anyone to meddle with his private property; he desired and expected to find—at all times and upon all occasions—his personal matters unmolested, undisturbed, left entirely alone.

Mrs. Davis mildly replied that she had only taken from the room some useless papers, scraps of letters, old envelopes, bits of twine and wrapping paper.

He declared that these were the very things he needed most; the ones he specially missed.

She remonstrated, but to no purpose; he silenced her; just how, she could not comprehend.

To Walt Whitman's credit be it said, he never spoke an unkind word to Mrs. Davis; never was arrogant or overbearing to her; never belittled her or put her down before others; always treated her as an equal; relied upon her judgment and often sought her advice;—but he would have his own way, and she with her yielding nature soon gave in; the struggle was only a short one; before winter commenced, confusion once more reigned.

In due time piles of periodicals were stacked on the table and on chairs; newspapers, letters, envelopes and bundles of manuscript were in the corners; and as he had immediately set about the work he had so greatly at heart, cuttings, rejected scraps of paper and general litter soon covered the floor, the confusion gradually making its way into the next room and threatening to invade the hall.

The front parlor became a veritable editor's sanctum; nothing but the smell of printer's ink and the sound of the press were wanting.

Some of his poems he altered and revised again and again, and in a short time the large waste basket Mary had placed in the room was filled to overflowing. As he would not allow her to remove or empty the basket, it became the foundation of a hillock of débris. Sometimes when he seemed off-guard she would surreptitiously remove a few dust pans full, but he was not deceived, and even this she had to discontinue.

The first summer and fall in his own house were decidedly pleasant and beneficial to Mr. Whitman. He worked as he felt able or inclined; was encouraged with the progress he was making, and gratified with the prospect before him. He believed, and must have seen, that situated so advantageously the one desire of his life was to be consummated, and that even though it were to be accomplished in a slow way, he would live to see his book completed and in a form to meet his most sanguine wishes.

Visitors retarded his work, but this was no real detriment, nor did he feel the time lost that he spent in returning visits. Making over the old material and adding to it the poems he had composed since the issue of the last edition, was something he could lay down and take up at any time. And he certainly did enjoy agreeable company, delighting whole-heartedly in their companionship as he dispensed the hospitality of his own board.

By degrees Mrs. Davis accustomed herself to her new surroundings and was no longer astonished at any of Walt's remarkable ways or unreasonable requests; besides, she remembered that the step she had taken was after all self-imposed, that all her friends had protested, and that it was now irrevocable; so with good sense and in good time she became, if not fully reconciled, at least resigned. She didn't exactly regret coming to Mickle Street, but she could judge from the few months she had passed there what the years to come might bring; yet even with this outlook she resolved not to shrink from but bravely to face the future, whatever might betide; and so unconsciously she transferred to Walt Whitman the devotion she had given to others.

She seldom left the house when he was there alone, for with that enigmatical instinct chronic patients develop he knew, and always wanted something, whenever she was busiest or on a momentary absence. Therefore after awhile she put all other considerations aside, and gave her full energies to the work she had undertaken; individual wishes were surrendered as she strove to adjust her ways to the erratic ones of the old man; familiar customs were discarded and former friends neglected. She seemed almost to lose her personality and to become a part of the house and the peculiar life lived there.

She was never obtrusive, and did all things in a quiet manner. If company lingered until midnight she remained up to assist her charge to bed; she humored his vagaries, and always had a smile and a pleasant word for him. When he was inclined to be despondent, she cheered him; when he was in pain, she had some simple remedy at hand; when he was in danger of overtaxing his strength, she gently cautioned him; and if the disorder of his rooms troubled her, she did not let him guess how much.

At first she supposed he was not in a position to purchase new clothing, and did her best to make him presentable in what he had, while she patiently awaited the time when the expected money should come in; and through her efficiency in washing, darning, patching and mending he soon presented a much improved appearance, often commented on.

His brother, his good sister-in-law, his other relatives and all his friends rested in peace. They knew the hands he was in, the shoulders upon which the burden had fallen.

V

CURIOUS NEIGHBORS

"Mr. Whitman and his housekeeper were closely watched by some curious people who had never lived near a poet before. In addition they minded their own business. That Camden should contain two such people in one street was enough to create wonder."—Thomas Donaldson.

THE inhabitants not only of Mickle Street, but of contiguous ones, were deeply interested in the strange couple who had come to live among them, and kept a close watch upon every movement. Their vigilance troubled Mrs. Davis, for she could see no reason why anyone should be curious about them. It was different with Mr. Whitman, who never saw anything he did not choose to. "I don't think a man ever existed so entirely indifferent to criticism and slander." (Sidney Morse.)

If Mrs. Davis chanced to go to her front door, half a dozen women would appear at theirs; if she swept her sidewalk, her broom seemed to set in motion half a dozen others. If she left her house for five minutes or remained away for hours, she would find sentinels awaiting her return. Sometimes as she was approaching home she would hear a shrill childish voice call out: "Mama! Mama! here she comes!" Or she would see a young urchin—presumably on guard—scamper into the house to give the alarm.

"They seemed always upon the alert, and saw to it that whatever went into Mr. Whitman's house should have an eye escort in and an eye escort out." (Thomas Donaldson.)

From behind curtains, shutters and blinds Mrs. Davis could see and instinctively feel eyes fastened upon her, and what appeared especially remarkable was that this intrusive neighborly interest failed to die out or lessen with time. It was a matter of genuine personal curiosity, keen and continuing, and not of the transient attention any newcomer might awaken.

Unquestionably there was an atmosphere of perplexity and perhaps suspicion in the locality. For one thing, extravagant and impossible as it may seem, it had been rumored about that some people who entered "The Poet's" house never came out again. A frequent caller during Mr. Whitman's first years of housekeeping says:

"Opposite, as I slid into the house one day, sat a bundle of dirt with bread and sugar upon it, on watch. As I hurried in I heard it yell, 'Hurry, Mama! A fat man at Whitman's door!' and presently a female watcher of two hundred and fifty pounds pattered to the door, wiping her fat arms on a checked apron. I heard her say as she retreated, 'Jimmie, watch if he comes out!' This confirmed the suspicion I had long had, that someone in the vicinity held that persons entered but didn't leave the Whitman house, and that they mysteriously disappeared." (Thomas Donaldson.)

This is no doubt curiously exaggerated; the woman probably only wished to get another glimpse of the "fat man" as he came out; but it is interesting as showing the feeling of a visitor. The effect of such conditions upon a woman like Mrs. Davis, living in the house itself and constantly exposed to the oppressive surveillance, might well have been serious. But she had a placid disposition and took things quietly. She was not at all disturbed because none of the older watchers made overtures towards an acquaintance.

It was different with the young people, however, for after their awe had somewhat subsided they began to be venturesome—to show their hardihood perhaps—and soon became quite familiar, making the cellar doors (old-fashioned slanting ones) their regular rendezvous. Here they would come to "mind babies," to hold mimic school and singing classes, to play games, keep house, take lunch and eat taffy purchased at a little corner store. Undoubtedly one inducement for their constant visits was the chance of getting one of the pennies that rolled occasionally out of the window above. Before summer had ended they had grown decidedly sociable, and in one of their favorite pastimes—running up and sliding down the cellar doors—each would pause for a moment at the top and peek in at the "good gray poet" as he sat anchored in his great chair, and ask, "How do you do to-day, Mr. Whitman?"

The poet's original style of dressing was probably one reason why he attracted so much notice. He wore gray clothes, large of make and uncertain of fit, with an open vest, over which was turned the broad collar of his shirt. The latter, during his entire sojourn in Camden, was invariably made of a good quality of unbleached cotton. He preferred this to any other material, and he could not tolerate a separate collar, starched bosom or necktie. He despised an ordinary pocket-handkerchief, and carried instead a generous piece of soft cotton or cheesecloth. His wide-brimmed hat, always looking the worse for wear, was usually turned up in front.

All this, with his size and long white hair and beard, made him a picturesque individual, and it was only natural that he should be recognized at once as a decidedly uncommon person.

Walt was an invalid and infirm, nevertheless when he was equipped and started he could go unaccompanied to Philadelphia and other nearby places. This enabled him to call upon friends, transact matters of business and keep in touch with the world generally. Sometimes he would take an extended ride on a street car, but the greatest source of enjoyment to him was a trip back and forth on the Delaware River. From the ferry boat he could feast his eyes upon ships—"those floating poems" (his own words)—either in the distance or passing close at hand. And here he was sure to meet some old acquaintance or to make a new one, and so feel himself still a factor in the busy bustling life around him.

Pleasant as were these rides to him, each one brought more or less tribulation to Mrs. Davis, for governed as he apparently was by the impulse of the moment, she was never given warning of his intentions or allowed time for preparations. His excursions therefore were a trial she had not counted upon. He would not mention the ferry, or hint of going there, until he was seated at the table, or more likely had finished his breakfast. This made much extra running up and down for Mary, who could have simplified matters by having him dressed to begin with for the weather and the occasion.

This did not seem to occur to him. Crippled, slow, and requiring so much assistance, and feeling that neither his own time nor that of anyone else was of much account, it was often past noon before he was ready for the start. Then Mrs. Davis, who always saw him safely on the street car, would hurriedly don her outer garments, for Mr. Whitman had little patience with delay in other people. The housekeeper helping the poet down the front steps was a sight none of the neighbors would willingly lose, therefore the couple always sallied forth under the musketry of glances shot out at them from every direction.

When walking in the street Mr. Whitman carried his cane in one hand, and with the other he clung tightly to the arm of his companion. His size and weight (even now, in spite of his invalidism, he weighed two hundred pounds) would have made a fall a serious matter.

The street cars—horse cars, running at fifteen minute intervals—on their way to the ferry crossed Mickle Street at the first corner above. If unfortunately one was missed, it seemed a long and tedious wait for the next. To Mrs. Davis this was both tiresome and embarrassing; embarrassing because of the lookers-on, and tiresome because during the delay Mr. Whitman depended mainly upon her arm for support.

All the conductors knew the picturesque old man, and were obliging and attentive to him. When he was entrusted to their care Mrs. Davis had nothing to fear; she was also confident that he would find a helping hand wherever he might go, so quickly doing her buying and errands she would hasten home, where a myriad of duties awaited her.

Mr. Whitman never gave a clue to his calculations—if he happened to have any—and consequently there could be no certainty as to the length of time he might be away. However, in the case of a ferry ride a few hours might be counted upon. Of these Mary would make full use; then as the afternoon lengthened and dinner time approached, she would grow restless and commence going to meet the cars. The return route was two blocks away, but the distance could be shortened by way of the back gate.

If Mr. Whitman was not in the first car met, she would hurry back, accomplish what she could in the next quarter of an hour, and then go again. Frequently when the car was not on time, some domestic calamity would occur; the fire would go out, or something burn, or a pot boil or stew over. In this case she would make what reparation she could in the limited time allotted her, then go again. This order of things would be kept up until Mr. Whitman's arrival; then would come the slow walk home, and the equally slow removing of wrappings, over-shoes and so on.

He always returned hilarious, braced up by the good time he had enjoyed, and totally unconscious that his housekeeper had had any extra work whatever, or a minute of anxiety on his account. The rides were indeed trying to her, and in pleasant weather he would go no less than three or four times a week.

Following the ferry ordeals, there came another unlooked-for tax, that of getting him ready for winter engagements and taking him wherever he had to go. There would have been less trouble in this if he had possessed a suitable outfit, but as he had made but few additions to his scanty wardrobe, the threadbare garments needed constant renovation. He had sufficient shirts, however, now; for soon after getting into his own house he had given her money for material, and she had made him six new ones. He himself superintended the cutting out and putting together, as they were to be fashioned with exactitude after the old pattern. With one of them he was particularly pleased, for around the collar and cuffs Mrs. Davis had sewed some lace edging of her own. This shirt he kept for special occasions, and never put it on without making some pleasant remark in regard to the trimming.

But of the two, Mrs. Davis had much the more pride in his appearance, for she had learned that he was often invited to meet distinguished people. She accompanied him on his way to all social gatherings, and unless other escort was assured, called for him. This, however, was of rare occurrence, as guests began to vie with each other in seeing him home. She also went with him to places of business in Camden and Philadelphia, at which times he depended upon her alone, both going and coming back. The task of walking with him was doubly burdensome when the roads were rough and uneven, or slippery with snow and ice, which caused him to cling to her arm with a grip of iron. He had lost strength in his lower limbs, but gained it in the upper, as Mary often realized, though Mr. Whitman was unaware of the severity of the pressure.

As he could not carry his cane in his left hand, the entire strain came upon her right arm, and as he became more and more dependent upon her, these walks grew almost unendurable; especially so when, for some purpose or other, or upon meeting a friend, he would thoughtlessly stand to talk, never releasing his grip.

VI

MR. WHITMAN DRIVES

"I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house, and I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air."—Walt Whitman.

"For such a lover of nature not to be able to get out of doors, was a calamity than which no greater was known."—Thomas Donaldson.

THE first winter over, spring came and was passed in about the same daily routine; but before the summer was far advanced Mrs. Davis was convinced that the old man's walking days were rapidly drawing to a complete close. This troubled her greatly, and during one of Mr. Thomas Donaldson's frequent evening visits she talked earnestly with him about it.

Mr. Donaldson, the poet's intimate and constant friend, was a practical man; one ready to listen to the suggestions of others, and to assist in forwarding their plans. Between him and Mrs. Davis there was a mutual understanding; each knew the other's worth. He had always shown consideration for her; had sought her out in her own house, and stood manfully by her side in her ministrations to the invalid.

She told him she was certain, from the number of letters Mr. Whitman received, his many visitors from other cities and abroad, his increasing list of invitations and requests for personal interviews, that he must be a man in whom others were deeply interested.

She said that for some time she had had a plan in her mind. It was this: that he should write to Mr. Whitman's friends—as he knew just who they were—and solicit a subscription of ten dollars from each of them, the fund to be appropriated to the purchase of a horse and carriage for the poet's use.

Mr. Donaldson fell in with the scheme, and thirty-one of the thirty-five letters written by him received prompt replies, and in each was the sum asked for. As the gift was to be a surprise, only a few friends were let into the secret. A comfortable buggy was ordered and a gentle pony selected, as it was supposed the drives would be quiet ones, in suburban places.

On the fifteenth of September all was completed, and Mr. Donaldson came over in the afternoon, ostensibly to make a call. He found his friend on a lounge in the front room, and seating himself commenced to chat with him upon the topics of the times. This he continued to do until he heard the gift carriage drive up to the door. His young son Blaine sat by the driver's side.

Mr. Donaldson went to the window, and Mr. Whitman hobbled after him to see who had arrived. "Bless me," he said, "what a fine turnout! And there is Blaine! Well, well, how the lad does seem to fit it; how comfortable it does look! What does it all mean?"

"It certainly does look comfortable," Mr. Donaldson replied, "and Walt, it's yours." This statement he repeated twice before his astonished friend could believe he had heard aright, and even then he did not appear to take in or comprehend the full meaning of such an announcement. While still dazed and hardly himself—impassive as was his natural demeanor—his friend handed him a letter containing the names of the contributors, in an envelope with $135.40 enclosed. Mr. Whitman read the letter and was completely overcome; tears trickled down his cheeks, and he was unable to articulate a word.

When he was somewhat composed, Mrs. Davis, who had been slyly watching the scene, came in with his coat and hat, and proposed that he should at once—and for the first time—take a drive in a turnout of his own. It proved to be a long drive, as it was late in the afternoon when he returned.

Mrs. Davis was delighted; the gift surpassed her highest expectations, was much nicer and more expensive than she had thought it was to be; and she rejoiced to see the poor old man, who not two years before had shuffled to her door, now riding in a carriage of his own!—and one provided, too, by those friends he had told her of, friends she had believed to be but myths conjured up in his own lonesome mind.

Mr. Whitman deeply appreciated the compliment paid him. He said: "I have before now been made to feel in many touching ways how kind and thoughtful my loving friends are, but this present is so handsome and valuable, and comes so opportunely, and is so thoroughly a surprise, that I can hardly realize it. My paralysis has made me so lame lately that I have had to give up my walks. Oh! I shall have a famous time this fall!"

Previous to the presentation an arrangement had been made at a nearby stable for the care of the horse, the running expense of which was to be met by a number of friends; a young man was also engaged to harness the horse and drive the rig to the door. But who was to summon it? That part being unprovided for, it fell to Mrs. Davis, and Mr. Whitman became as erratic with his horse as he was with all other things. Some mornings it would be: "I must give up my ride to-day, the weather is so uncertain"; soon after: "It looks like clearing up, I will go"; then on Mrs. Davis's return from the stable: "I have made up my mind to defer my ride." Again would come the determination to go, followed with the afterthought of remaining at home, until ordering the carriage and countermanding the order would keep the obliging messenger running to and from the stable until dark.

Riding was so great an enjoyment to Mr. Whitman that when once in his carriage he was loth to leave it. "Only one thing seemed to have the power of forcing from him an occasional lament, and that was prolonged stormy weather when bad health kept him indoors for days and weeks."

Poor Frank, the pony, had not been selected for speed or endurance, and in an amazingly short time he succumbed to over-driving. At the expiration of only two months, Mr. Donaldson says, "the pony showed the effects of Mr. Whitman's fast driving, and had a shake in the forelegs—or rather tremble—that gave the impression that he was getting ready to lie down.... Some weeks after this I was again in Camden, and while on the main street I saw a cloud of dust rising from a fast-approaching vehicle. In a moment a splendid bay horse attached to a buggy came into view. He was coming in a mile in three minutes' gait, and to my amazement, in the buggy was Walt Whitman holding on to the lines with one hand for dear life. When he observed me, he drew up with great difficulty and called out, 'Hello, Tom, ain't he splendid?' My breath was about gone. I managed to speak. 'Mr. Whitman, in the name of common sense what has come over you? Where is Frank?' 'Sold; I sold him. He was groggy in the knees and too slow. This horse is a goer, and delights me with his motion.'"

The ready sale of Frank was a great mortification to Mrs. Davis, and she felt it keenly; the more so as the pony had been, in a measure, the outcome of her suggestion.

Although the horse and carriage were "a source of infinite joy and satisfaction to Mr. Whitman, and aided him to pass three years of his invalid life in comparative ease, giving him touches of life and air and scenery otherwise impossible," they were a constant expense and vexation to others.

He seldom went for a drive alone, and as a rule chose as his companion one of the many young men of his acquaintance. He always wished to hold the lines himself. Although Mrs. Davis was the usual messenger to and from the stable, although she got her charge ready for his drives, assisted him to the carriage and almost lifted him in and out of it, neither he nor anyone else ever proposed that she should have the pleasure of a drive, or suggested that an occasional airing might do her good.

While owning the horse Mr. Whitman did not wholly discontinue his ferry rides, but he no longer "haunted the Delaware River front" as formerly.

What a change two years had made in his surroundings!—and what a change in those of Mary Davis! He had come more prominently before the great world; she had nearly passed out of her own limited sphere. The tide which turned when they entered the Mickle Street house was now in full flood for him. But what for her?

His book had had a good sale; private contributions were sent to him, amounting to many hundreds of dollars; and from this time on he did little with his pen, though he got occasional lifts from periodicals for both old and new work, and the New York Herald paid him a regular salary as one of its editorial staff. But he resigned this position the following year.

VII

BROOMS, BILLS AND MENTAL CHLOROFORM

"He detested a broom. He considered it almost a sin to sweep, and always made a great fuss when it was done."—Eddie Wilkins.

"The tremendous firmness of Walt Whitman's nature grew more inflexible with advancing years."—Horace Traubel.

THE second winter in Mickle Street passed much like the previous one. To Mr. Whitman it brought heavier mail, an increase of complimentary notes and invitations, more numerous requests for autographs, steady progress with revision-work, a little new and profitable composition, the delightful companionship of old friends, the pleasure of making new ones, and the comfortable assurance that come what might, there was a capable captain at the helm, who would on all occasions guide the ship of affairs smoothly along. To Mrs. Davis it brought the same old round of work.

The next spring and part of the summer were charming seasons to the poet. In them he revelled in his turnout; was sought after, eulogized and lauded. His day-star was truly in the ascendant.

This acknowledged popularity was a revelation to Mrs. Davis, who often asked herself, "Where were these friends—the ones in particular who have always lived in Camden—when a short time ago poor old Mr. Whitman, homeless and uncared for, so much needed their help?"

But as his popularity increased and grew more marked, as letters and invitations came pouring in, and as at certain gatherings she knew him to be the honored guest, it began to dawn upon her that his poetry—the poetry she had so often heard derided—might mean something after all, and she set herself assiduously to studying it. Finding so much that was beyond her comprehension, she sometimes sought elucidation from the author. This he never vouchsafed, and gave but one reply to all her questions: "Come, you tell me what it means." Unable to comply, she soon laid the book aside and gave her time and attention to other matters. Thus, failing to understand anything of his "soul flights," she no doubt was the better prepared to minister to his mundane needs. A domestic angel in the house she certainly could be. An intellectual angel might have worried Mr. Whitman.

Yes, his day-star was truly shining. It was no will-o'-the-wisp he was chasing the day he came hungry and cold, weary and desolate to a good woman's door. Evidently he might have done better with his "little money" at that time, even if it was "only in sight," as "driblets were occasionally coming in." With these driblets he might have kept himself more presentable, seemed less of a derelict. But he had one preëminent need: he needed Mary Davis, and he got her.

She had not peered into the future with his prophetic insight, and in helping to open the way for the good times to come—times he had told her so much about—she had been governed by her kind heart alone. Her associates had never spoken of her protégé in any too flattering terms, and weighing all poets by his local standard, had congratulated themselves that not one of them was in danger of ever degenerating into such genius.

By midsummer Mr. Whitman had visited in and near Camden, and had made two or three trips to Atlantic City and New York. Everyone was kind and considerate to him, wherever he might be, and as a reliable person always accompanied him on these expeditions, Mrs. Davis was never uneasy on his account, and his absences were her opportunities for resting up and putting the house to rights. Nor did she altogether skip the parlors, for she had somewhat lost her confidence in Mr. Whitman's gift of missing the very thing that was gone. Another Mary—an unfortunate woman; but who ever attached themselves to Mrs. Davis who were not in some trouble or other?—used to come in to assist when extra help was required. Her field of action ended at the kitchen door when the master was at home, for she stood in great awe of him and knew better than to appear in his presence with any order-restoring implement in her hands, especially a broom. But how she exulted when he was at a distance; when she could pass the old boundary unchallenged, and could rub and polish to her heart's desire, and according to her own ideas of cleanliness. She was often heard to remark that Mr. Whitman was the most "unthrifty" man she had ever met.

Mr. Whitman might be able to control the use of brooms about his own premises, but his authority did not extend beyond. How the women of the locality learned of his antipathy to sweeping, either in or out of doors, is not known. Probably in some unguarded moment he had condemned it in their hearing. "He was extremely annoyed by the habit the women of his neighborhood had of coming out two or three times a day with their brooms, and stirring up the water in the gutter. He thought it caused malaria. If they would only let it alone!" (Thomas Donaldson.)

It may be that the women made their brooms an excuse for tantalizing "The Poet." He was no less opposed to their sweeping in dry weather, and one morning when six or seven appeared simultaneously and set to sweeping with a will, he knew that it was nothing less than a concerted plan, and this he would not endure. Irritated beyond self-control, he let his indignation fly out of the window in passionate and pointed sentences, which the sweepers totally ignored.

In 1867, about four years after his general breakdown, he had commenced to give occasional lectures. This spring (1886) he delivered two, the first on March 1, in Morton Hall, Camden, the second on the afternoon of April 15, in the Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia. Both lectures were upon the same subject, his favorite theme: Abraham Lincoln.

He was not an orator, and his audiences were at all times made up of people more curious perhaps to see than to hear him. This second lecture—his last appearance but one as a speaker in the "Quaker City"—was a greater strain than he had calculated upon, although the arrangements had been made for him by his friends, and he was conveyed from his own house direct to the back door of the theatre.

He always remained in his carriage while crossing the river.

Few people attended this lecture, and out of the $692 it netted him, only $78.25 was received at the door. The rest was made up by appreciative admirers. Two gentlemen gave each $100, four gave $50 each, eight gave $10, two $5, and a society—The Acharon—gave $45. The money was handed to Mr. Whitman in a large white envelope as he left the stage. It was not removed from the envelope until the next forenoon, when it was deposited unbroken in the bank.

During the summer Mr. Whitman sustained a sunstroke, fortunately not a serious one, but while suffering from the effects of it he was obliged to give up his jaunts and remain indoors. However, on pleasant evenings he could sit in a chair on the sidewalk, under his one cherished shade tree, into the bark of which he soon wore a hole with the restless movement of his right foot. Of the passers-by there were few who did not know him; many would pause for a moment's speech, others would occasionally get a chair and remain for an hour's chat. He soon recovered, but if the similar stroke he had suffered a few years before had served "to lower his fund of strength, weaken the springs of his constitution and almost wholly destroy his walking powers," (Thomas Donaldson), there was certainly little encouragement in store for him.

His housekeeper, too, had her physical troubles. She had visibly changed; how could it be otherwise? The back part of the house was gloomy, at times damp and unwholesome, and she had grappled with so many difficulties that she had lost strength and flesh, felt run down and nervous, while the "rosy cheeks" had faded forever.

This sickness not only made Mr. Whitman even more dependent upon her than usual, but it caused her great anxiety in another way. She realized the great risk she had taken and was taking, for on coming into the house she had relied upon verbal promises alone; no written contract or agreement had been entered into.

Now month had followed month and she had waited in vain for the old man to allude to living expenses or inquire as to her ability to meet them longer. Strange as it may seem, since being settled in his own house Walt had never mentioned money, or in any way broached the subject of his financial standing.

During the first year she had not been at all disturbed in mind; she had confidence in his integrity, and believed he had no means of meeting present embarrassments. The next summer she saw that money was coming in from a number of sources, but had no way of learning the amounts received or in what way they were disbursed. This sunstroke and the consequences that might have resulted from it were enough to arouse her thoroughly. Not that she had lost confidence in Mr. Whitman, but it came home to her that should he die she would be in no way secured. Before long the bequest left her by Captain Fritzinger would be following her own savings, which were rapidly dwindling away.

After thinking the matter over seriously, she resolved that as soon as the sick man had somewhat recuperated she would make an effort to have things put on a new and safer basis. She knew that from private donations, sale of books, government pension, receipts from lectures and so on, he had opened a bank account. She also knew he was paying one-half the expenses of Edward at a sanitarium and was sending a weekly remittance to his sister in Vermont,—and knowing all this, she felt that she was being treated with injustice. She had already spoken to Mrs. Whitman and to one or two others, and they had assured her that Walt was abundantly able to meet all household expenses, and would without doubt do so in his own good time.

She had never solicited his confidence, and yet while they were strangers, or comparative strangers,—long before she had entertained the slightest thought that she should one day exchange her home for his,—he had talked freely, even confidentially, to her; had voluntarily spoken of his money matters, his past disappointments and future expectations. But since she had come into the Mickle Street house he had never renewed these subjects, and his way of passing them over was inexplicable to her.

When the first repairs had been made in the house, she had taken the bill to him for approval and payment. He had simply glanced at it, and returned it with the words: "I think it must be all right." She had remained standing in the doorway until, silent, seemingly absorbed in his reading and oblivious of her presence, he had made her feel so uncomfortable that she had quietly glided away to pay the carpenter out of her own purse. This happened so early in their housekeeping together that she, so charitable by nature, had excused him on the ground that, having no money, he had disliked to talk further about the bill. But a year had passed, she understood his position better, and she could not excuse him again on this plea. She had mentioned the urgent need of further repairs (and when were they not needed in this little rookery?) and he had promptly replied: "Have it done; certainly, certainly; have everything done that is required." The result was still the same; although ordering the work, he was just as indifferent as before in regard to settling for it.

And so it had gone on in all cases where money had been needed, until Mrs. Davis, who was neither dull nor obtuse, saw that it was merely a matter of choice with him whether he paid for things promptly or not. The receipted bills she had carefully filed away, but what proof had she that they had been met with her own money?

At the expiration of the second year, Mr. Whitman at his own expense had the water carried upstairs and a bathtub put in. This was a blessing to both of them, and Mrs. Davis ungrudgingly saw a portion of her own room—the one little back chamber—sacrificed that it might be made possible.

Up to the time of the sunstroke she had made a number of futile attempts to introduce the subject of finances, but he had simply uttered "Ah!" (what a world of meaning he could put into that monosyllable!) and had silenced her with a look.

An observer says: "I found Whitman sitting on the front stoop talking with a negative pugnacious reformer. The poet entertained his ideas without a trace of impatience or severity of judgment, and yet he was capable of quietly chloroforming him if he became too disagreeable." Another writes: "This leading trait of his character lasted until life glimmered faintly." It was this "leading trait" that prevented Mrs. Davis from introducing any subject not pleasing to him. Again: "He has his stern as well as sad moods; in the former there is a look of power in his face that almost makes one tremble." Mrs. Davis had no fear of Mr. Whitman; he never gave her cause to tremble, but he quietly chloroformed her times without number.

The expenses of the house were not light; amongst other things, two coal fires in winter, and a wood fire much of the time. Wood was a luxury to him, but it was an expensive item to his housekeeper, and the little stove in his sleeping room devoured it like an insatiate monster. "He enjoyed a wood fire." Then she supplied his table and entertained his guests—his many guests. She never bothered him; was always on hand and ready to help him to mature his plans, however inexpedient or impracticable they might appear to her.

VIII

VISITING AND VISITORS

"His haunt on 'Timber Creek' is one of the loveliest spots imaginable; no element lacking to make it an ideal ground for a poet, or study place for a lover of nature."—William Sloane Kennedy.

"April 11, 1887. I expect to go to New York to speak my 'Death of Lincoln' piece Thursday afternoon next. Probably the shake up will do me good....

"Stood it well in New York. It was a good break from my monotonous days here, but if I had stayed longer, I should have been killed with kindness and attentions."—Walt Whitman.

IT was decided that Mr. Whitman should make one of his delightful visits to his friends, the Staffords, in their beautiful country home, "Timber Creek," just as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to take the trip, and Mrs. Davis thought best to defer talking with him or considering any definite step regarding home matters until he returned. She took pains to get him ready, and, as she had done before, persuaded him to purchase some new clothing and look his best. This visit, like previous ones, was charming to the poet, and he came home much benefited. While he was away Mrs. Davis rested and paid a short visit to the aged parents of Mrs. Fritzinger in Doylstown, Pennsylvania. In this breathing spell she had thought home matters over and had planned her mode of procedure; but alas! when the poet appeared upon the spot and she had welcomed him, the courage she had summoned up when he was out of sight deserted her. She threw out hints, then made attempts to speak, but to no avail; an understanding was not brought about and things went on in the old fashion.

Much as Mr. Whitman enjoyed his visits and jaunts, coming back to his own home was the one great joy of his life, and meeting his housekeeper after even a brief absence was always a pleasure to him.

It was quite late in the fall when he returned. He resumed his work at once, and the winter was not an unpleasant one to him; only somewhat tedious, because he was so closely confined to the house. In other ways it was made cheerful with social events and agreeable company, and it was brightened with anticipations of the delightful drives to be enjoyed in the spring. (It was about this time that Horace Traubel commenced to come to the house.)

Each season had added to his popularity, until he had attained the zenith of his most sanguine imaginations; his most potent daydreams had truly materialized; he was fully on the crest of the wave! His housekeeping had surpassed his fondest expectations, for to him his home was ideal. Deprivation was a thing of the past; there was no lack of means, as private contributions were sent to him amounting to many hundreds of dollars. That he was poor and needy, and "was supported in his final infirmities by the kind interest of his friends, who subscribed each his mite that the little old frame house in Camden might shelter the snowy head of the bard to the end," was the universal belief, and a kindly feeling was manifested towards him in his own home and in England. It is to be regretted that he was not better fitted physically to enjoy all his later blessings.

Out-of-doors life seemed essential to him, and after a number of outings he was able, as early as April 6, 1887, to read his Lincoln lecture—the last he gave in his own city. It was well attended, and listened to with deep attention. On the 12th of the same month he went to New York for the purpose of reading his lecture there. He was accompanied by William Duckett, a young friend who acted as valet and nurse, and it was on his arm the old man leaned as he came forward on the stage and stood a few minutes to acknowledge the applause of the audience. When the tumult had subsided, the poet sat down beside a stand, laid his cane on the floor, put on his glasses and proceeded to read from a little book, upon whose pages the manuscript and printed fragments were pasted.

"The lecturer was dressed in a dark sack coat, with dark gray waistcoat and trousers, low shoes, and gray woollen socks. The spotless linen of his ample cuffs and rolling collar was trimmed with a narrow band of edging, and the cuffs were turned up over the ends of his sleeves." Thus says the New York Tribune of the next day, and it cannot be denied that his appearance did credit to his housekeeper's attention at this time, as it did on all other public occasions. The "spotless linen," however, was unbleached cotton, one of the six new shirts Mrs. Davis had made for him.

The lecture was very successful. At the close, a little girl, Laura Stedman, the five year old granddaughter of the "banker poet," walked out upon the stage and presented Mr. Whitman with a basket of lilac blossoms. The New York Times had this account of the event the next morning:

"Forth on the stage came a beautiful basket of lilac blossoms, and behind it was a little bit of a maiden in a white Normandy cap and a little suit of Quaker gray, her eyes beaming, and her face deeply impressed with the gravity of the occasion. She walked to where he sat and held out her gift without a word. He started, took it and then took her.

"It was December frost and May-time blossom at their prettiest contrast, as the little pink cheek shone against the snow-white beard, for the old man told his appreciation mutely by kissing her and kissing her again, the audience meanwhile applauding sympathetically."

Mr. Whitman then recited his poem "O Captain!" and the curtain fell—fell to shut him from the sight of a New York audience forever.

Mrs. Davis always dreaded Mr. Whitman's New York visits, and this episode caused her extra anxiety. She knew that his many and influential friends would give him a warm welcome and a great reception, and she also knew how prone the poet was to go beyond the bounds of prudence. He could stand only a little fatigue and excitement now. He returned in good condition, however, and she flattered herself that a quiet summer was before them. He had told her that this lecture (which increased his bank account by six hundred dollars) was to be his last public function, but she had no knowledge of something else he had in near view; something he had already arranged for.

IX

A BUST AND A PAINTING

"Sidney Morse has made a second big head (bust), an improvement, if I dare to say so, on the first. The second is the Modern Spirit Awake and Alert as well as Calm—contrasted with the antique and Egyptian calmness of the first."—Walt Whitman.

"Oh, that awful summer of 1887!"—Mary Davis.

EARLY in the summer, when he had fully recovered from his exertions in New York, Mr. Whitman received a letter from a sculptor, Mr. Sidney Morse, requesting the privilege of coming to Camden at once, to make a plaster bust of him. The promise had been given to Mr. Morse for the summer, but the actual date had not been fixed upon.

Eleven years before this artist had made a very unsatisfactory bust of Walt, one he had always wished to improve upon. On the first occasion Walt had not entertained the thought of such an undertaking in his brother's house, but had gone to Philadelphia for the sittings. This time, as before, the choice of location had been left to him; and it seemed almost incredible that he, who had been initiated in this line of art, should have imposed upon his housekeeper to the extent of giving his own stuffy little house the preference over a more suitable place.

He had answered Mr. Morse's letter, telling him he would cheerfully put himself at his disposal; the summer was before them, and nothing else impending. In short, he would engage himself to him for the summer, and he was confident the result would be better this time.

About two weeks elapsed, and nothing had been said to Mrs. Davis on the subject when one morning to her surprise the artist arrived, prepared to go to work without delay. Had she been consulted, she could have made preliminary preparations; had she been better informed she would have persuaded Mr. Whitman to select a different place, and had she been fully enlightened she would have insisted upon it.

Mr. Morse writes: "I found Mr. Whitman more crippled and quieter in manner than when we met before. Eleven years had wrought their changes. He was however in a less perturbed frame of mind."

Naturally so; in his own home, contradicted in nothing, with his own carriage, and a devoted woman to wait upon him,—one who never intimated that there existed such exigencies as living expenses or household entanglements. It was left to the artist to tell Mrs. Davis the purpose for which he had come. He said that he was desirous of beginning his work as soon as was compatible with Mr. Whitman's convenience, and the poet seeing no obstacle in the way of an immediate commencement, it was decided that the first sitting should take place the following afternoon. Mrs. Davis was somewhat enlightened as to what the making of a bust implied when a load of mysterious and cumbersome articles drove up to the door in the morning. Puzzled both as to their use and where they could be housed, she had them delivered at the back gate and piled up in the yard.

Mr. Morse kept his appointment with promptitude, and after a few minutes' conversation with his subject, he summoned the housekeeper, and then, "the litter of everything under heaven was poked aside" to make a clearing by the window. Mrs. Davis assisted him in bringing some of the articles from the yard, such as boards and boxes upon which to fashion the clay; then when the necessity came for something in which to mix it, her wash tubs were at once appropriated, and as smaller vessels were from time to time required, many of her dishes and kitchen utensils were one by one pressed into service.

During the first afternoon the work was put well in progress, and what a time was thus inaugurated! Before the week ended there was clay and plaster on all sides. The two men, interested in the bust alone, were oblivious to everything else, and passed the time chatting in a lively strain. The artist was satisfied with his work and delighted with the prospect of being undisturbed until its completion. He writes: "My deep satisfaction overflowed to the housekeeper, who admonished me that there was an element of uncertainty in Mr. Whitman's programme nowadays"—and sooner than he had counted upon, her words were verified, for on the morning following her mild warning a telegram came and "the damper fell," as Mr. Morse says. This was the telegram: "Am in New York and may arrive in Camden at any moment. Herbert Gilchrist."

"He's coming to paint me," said Mr. Whitman on reading the message; "I had forgotten about him. We will put him over there somewhere; I don't see what I can do to stop it; he has come all the way from England—from England, Sidney, to paint me. Make the best of it, share the crust with him." "The damper fell" for Mrs. Davis as well, when Mr. Whitman in his usual off-hand manner announced the news to her. Another artist coming! a portrait painter! And Mr. Whitman who had known of this for an indefinite time had given her no warning, had taken her unaware. She was completely overcome, and not a little indignant. Had he really forgotten it, or had he thought it a matter of too little importance to mention? It was not often that Mrs. Davis shed tears in self-pity, but now they were her only relief. It was not the extra work and expense that troubled her most; it was Mr. Whitman's indifference towards her.