Then, his interests and sympathies were enormously wide. He took in so
much! One day Edward was walking past Fulton Market, in New York City,
with Mr. Beecher.
"Never skirt a market," the latter said; "always go through it. It's
the next best thing, in the winter, to going South."
Of course all the marketmen knew him, and they knew, too, his love for
green things.
"What do you think of these apples, Mr. Beecher?" one marketman would
stop to ask.
Mr. Beecher would answer heartily: "Fine! Don't see how you grow them.
All that my trees bear is a crop of scale. Still, the blossoms are
beautiful in the spring, and I like an apple-leaf. Ever examine one?"
The marketman never had. "Well, now, do, the next time you come across
an apple-tree in the spring."
And thus he would spread abroad an interest in the beauties of nature
which were commonly passed over.
"Wonderful man, Beecher is," said a market dealer in green goods once.
"I had handled thousands of bunches of celery in my life and never
noticed how beautiful its top leaves were until he picked up a bunch
once and told me all about it.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141