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about the camp fire,

with their

prayers, translated, of course, into their own tongue. These incantations lasted fully half an hour, more for aught I know, as

was always

asleep by

that time.

With all the benefits that are supposed to come with civilization, a half civilized nature is always to me a pitiable object. He stands like the wayfarer with his journey only partly finished, thinking of what he has left behind and wondering, or supposed by you to be wondering,

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INDIAN BOYS SPEARING SALMON.

these fiery colors stood

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out groups of coniferous trees in Prussian green, except where a forest fire had raged and changed them to a burnt sienna. And on goes the noble Nechaco, pressing against the high beaches until it is fairly turned back into its own course, and we find ourselves going towards the north. It is over all too soon, three hundred miles in four days. Then the steamer, then the stage, and two hundred more miles are covered. At last the coach rattles into dusty Ashcroft; and a faint whistle floating up the hot air from far down the valley tells that the train is coming to carry me three thousand miles and that in five short days I shall be in New England.

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THE PEASANT'S TEMPTATION.

By George E. Tufts.

N the deep sleep that to the toiler comes,

IN

Arose the pale and fitful light of dreams.

By unknown deserts with my love I strayed,—
When down the wind a group of riders whirled,
Proudly attired and joyous eke and free;
And they and we upon the desert plain
Grew mixed in quaint and spectral minuet,
Gathered or scattered by a sudden whim;
And one, the fairest lady of the band,
Somehow was with me from the rest apart,
And love's sweet spell upon us fondly wrought.
Bright in the dream the glance of her mild eye;
Her soft, white hands were warm as human life;
Her soft and tender cheek was pressed to mine;-
When with mischievous glance to where she stood,
The lady said, "How fares it with your mate?"
I answered as an idiot, out of sense,

That she was only little peasant folk,-
And straightway woke in ecstasy of tears;
But why they fell I can not now discern ;-

Whether for thought of the vanished lady fair
And my eternal exile from her sphere,
Or shame that I was false to my true love,
Standing alone, forgotten in the waste.

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"I

"TENTING ON THE OLD CAMP GROUND,"

AND ITS COMPOSER.

By Gordon Hall Gerould.

KNEW a very wise man," wrote Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, long ago, to the Marquis of Montrose, "that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws, of a nation."

The rare privilege of making a nation's songs is given to no one man. Often it is granted to those who make no claim to literary distinction or great learning, but who pour out their deep and universal feeling in simple melody that takes a people captive. The fame of such composers is largely merged in the renown of their songs; yet they have their reward in the enduring power of their work over men's hearts. Such a composer is Mr. Walter Kittredge, whose name indeed is widely known by the older generation, but whose greatest song, "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," is one of the enduring legacies of the Civil War to America.

Mr. Kittredge's own testimony concerning folk songs is of value. "I believe," he once told me, "that one must be almost ashamed of his song at first, because of its simplicity, if he is going to make a success. He must feel what he is writing, actually see it, if he is going to write a song that will move men. I tell you," he added, "a song will often do more than a speech." So it has proved in his own case. The song which seemed to him most simple has been his greatest success. Though heralded by no trumpets, it yet became within a few months of its publication, as sung by the author and his companions, the famous Hutchinsons, a household word all over the country. It has been sung on battlefields and by camp-fires, in war and in peace. It

has become incorporated into the national life as only a few other songs have been.

Walter Kittredge was born at Reed's Ferry, New Hampshire, October 8, 1834. He was the tenth of eleven children. His father, Eri Kittredge, was a prosperous farmer and owner of a thriving brickyard. Five sons settled near him as they grew up. Of the eleven children, only two still survive, Walter Kittredge and his youngest brother. As a boy, Walter Kittredge went to the district school near his home, and later, while helping his father at brickmaking and farming during a large part of the year, he attended the Merrimack Normal Institute during the winter months.

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He early became interested in music, and with his older sister Sophia, who herself had a remarkable voice, studied singing and harmony as best he could. The brother and sister practised faithfully, and used to please the brickmakers at their work and the people of the village by their singing. Their first musical instrument was a rude flute which Walter constructed from the stalk of a seed onion. When he was between twelve and fifteen, their father bought a seraphine, a rough reed instrument, with which they learned to play and to read music readily.

Kittredge's first ambition as a young man was for the stage. To one who has heard him sing and who remembers the dramatic power of his expression, his

success as a n actor would not seem to have been problematical. Indeed, the songs in character which he was accustomed to introduce into his concerts used to be among his most popular productions. He studied

deon on to a rack behind his wagon, and with little noise started on a tour through the villages of the county. His repertoire consisted chiefly of old popular ballads like "King Solomon's Temple" and "A Bachelor's Woe." He interspersed the songs with recitations, Poe's "Raven" and "Bells," with other American favorites, and humorous selections like "A Smack in School." He held the entertainments in small, bare, candle-lighted country halls, or in the churches, which were scarcely less desolate.

as

Obscure was this beginning, it gave the young singer experience. In the following year he became associated with the famous Hutchinson fam

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ily, who had already made their reputation as singers in the antislavery cause and whose history has lately been written by the surviving brother. With the Hutchinsons, Mr. Kittredge sang at intervals for twenty years, a great part of the time with Joshua Hutchinson. During the years preceding the Civil Civil War, though separated for a time in 1857, the two travelled together extensively over New England and into New York, Pennsylvania and Canada. They sang simple patriotic and popular songs. Gradually, as need required, Mr. Kittredge began to compose airs of his own and words to fit the music. In time they came to make up their concerts largely from this source, and in 1862 gathered the songs into a little book.

WALTER KITTREDGE.

elocution as carefully as singing, and undoubtedly, if his family with their inherited hatred of the theatre had not opposed, would have followed his bent. As it was, he had to abandon his plan and aid his father till he came of age.

After he was twenty-one, Mr. Kittredge determined to strike out for himself as a concert singer, beginning in a very humble way. He bought a horse and wagon from an older brother, had some advertising bills printed in Boston, strapped a melo

When the Rebellion broke out, in

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