HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
Then, as the fine head bent down to copy the lines once more, Edward
ventured to say to him;
"I should think it would keep you busy if you did this for every one
who asked you."
"Well," said the poet, "you see, I am not so busy a man as I was some
years ago, and I shouldn't like to disappoint a little girl, should
you?"
As he took up his letters again, he discovered five more requests for
his autograph. At each one he reached into a drawer in his desk, took
a card, and wrote his name on it.
"There are a good many of these every day," said Longfellow, "but I
always like to do this little favor. It is so little to do, to write
your name on a card; and if I didn't do it some boy or girl might be
looking, day by day, for the postman and be disappointed. I only wish
I could write my name better for them. You see how I break my letters?
That's because I never took pains with my writing when I was a boy. I
don't think I should get a high mark for penmanship if I were at
school, do you?"
"I see you get letters from Europe," said the boy, as Longfellow opened
an envelope with a foreign stamp on it.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88