place a tree had fallen across it, and to reach the next coil of the path below was dangerous. So I had the girls dismount and I led the gray horse down on his haunches. The mules refused to follow, which was rather unusual. I went back and from a safe distance in the rear I belabored them down. They cared neither for gray horse nor crooked path, but turned of their own devilish wills along the bushy mountain side. As I ran after them the gray horse started calmly on down and those two girls shrieked with laughter-they knew no better. First one way and then the other down the mountain went those mules, with me after them, through thick bushes, over logs, stumps and bowlders and holes-crossing the path a dozen times. What that path was there for never occurred to those longeared half asses, whole fools, and by and by, when the girls tried to shoo them down they clambered around and above them and struck the path back up the mountain. The horse had gone down one way, the mules up the other, and there was no health in anything. The girls could not go up-so there was nothing to do but go down, which, hard as it was, was easier than going up. The path was not visible now. Once in a while I would stumble from it and crash through the bushes to the next coil below. Finally I went down, sliding one foot ahead all the time-knowing that when leaves rustled under that foot I was on the point of going astray. Sometimes I had to light a match to make sure of the way, and thus the ridiculous descent was made with those girls in high spirits behind. Indeed, the darker, rockier, steeper it got, the more they shrieked from pure joy-but I was any thing than happy. It was dangerous. I didn't know the cliffs and high rocks we might skirt and an unlucky guidance might land us in the creek-bed far down. But the blessed stars came out, the moon peered over a further mountain and on the last spur there was the gray horse browsing in the path-and the sound of running water not far below. Fortunately on the gray horse were the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thought the whole thing a mighty lark. We reached the running water, struck a flock of geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity was somewhere near. A few turns of the creek and a beacon light shone below. The pales of a

picket fence, the cheering outlines of a logcabin came in view and at a peaked gate I shouted:

"Hello!"

You enter no mountaineer's yard without that announcing cry. It was mediaval, the Blight said, positively--two lorn damsels, a benighted knight partially stripped of his armor by bush and sharp-edged rock, a gray palfrey (she didn't mention the impatient asses that had turned homeward) and she wished I had a horn to wind. I wanted a "horn" badly enough—but it was not the kind men wind. By and by we got a response:

"Hello!" was the answer, as an opened door let out into the yard a broad band of light. Could we stay all night? The voice replied that the owner would see "Pap." "Pap" seemed willing, and the boy opened the gate and into the house went the Blight and the little sister. Shortly, I followed.

There, all in one room, lighted by a huge wood-fire, rafters above, puncheon floor beneath-cane-bottomed chairs and two beds the only furniture-"pap," barefooted, the old mother in the chimney-corner with a pipe, strings of red pepper-pods, beans and herbs hanging around and above, a married daughter with a child at her breast, two or three children with yellow hair and bare feet-all looking with all their eyes at the two visitors who had dropped upon them from another world. The Blight's eyes were brighter than usual

that was the only sign she gave that she was not in her own drawing-room. Apparently she saw nothing strange or unusual even, but there was really nothing that she did not see or hear and absorb, as few others than the Blight can.

Straightway, the old woman knocked the ashes out of her pipe.

"I reckon you hain't had nothin' to eat," she said and disappeared. The old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees, the children got less shy and drew near the fire-place, the Blight and the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, interested me mightily.

"Yer snack's ready," said the old woman. The old man carried the chairs into the kitchen, and when I followed the girls were seated. The chairs were so low that their

chins came barely over their plates and demure and serious as they were they surely looked most comical. There was the usual bacon and corn-bread and potatoes and sour milk, and the two girls struggled with the rude fare nobly.

After supper I joined the old man and the old woman with a pipe-exchanging my tobacco for their long green with more satisfaction probably to me than to them, for the long green was good, and strong and fragrant.

The old woman asked the Blight and the little sister many questions and they, in turn showed great interest in the baby in arms, whereat the eighteen-year old mother blushed and looked greatly pleased.

"You got mighty purty black eyes," said the old woman to the Blight, and not to slight the little sister she added, "An' you got mighty purty teeth."

The Blight showed hers in a radiant smile and the old woman turned back to her.

"Oh, you've got both," she said and she shook her head, as though she were thinking of the damage they had done. It was my time now-to ask questions.

They didn't have many amusements on that creek, I discovered—and no dances. Sometimes the boys went coon-hunting and there were corn-shuckings, house-raisings and quilting-parties.

"Does anybody round here play the - banjo?"

"None o' my boys," said the old woman, "but Tom Green's son down the creekhe follers pickin' the banjo a leetle." "Follows pickin'"-the Blight did not miss that phrase.

"What do you foller fer a livin'?" the old man asked me suddenly.

"I write for a living." He thought a while.

"Well, it must be purty fine to have a good handwrite." This nearly dissolved the Blight and the little sister, but they held on heroically.

"Is there much fighting around here?" I asked presently.

"Not much 'cept when one young feller up the river gets to tearin' up things. I heerd as how he was over to the Gap last week-raisin' hell. He comes by here on his way home." The Blight's eyes opened wide-apparently we were on his

trail. It is not wise for a member of the police guard at the Gap to show too much curiosity about the lawless ones of the hills, and I asked no questions.

"They calls him the Wild Dog over here," he added, and then he yawned cavernously.

I looked around with divining eye for the sleeping arrangements soon to come, which sometimes are embarrassing to "furriners" who are unable to grasp at once the primitive unconsciousness of the mountaineers and, in consequence, accept a point of view natural to them because enforced by architectural limitations and a hospitality that turns no one seeking shelter from any door. They were, however, better prepared than I had hoped for. They had a spare room on the porch and just outside the door, and when the old woman led the two girls to it, I followed with their saddle-bags. The room was about seven feet by six and was windowless.

"You'd better leave your door open a little," I said, "or you'll smother in there.”

"Well," said the old woman, “hit's all right to leave the door open. Nothin's goin' ter bother ye, but one o' my sons is out a coon-huntin' and he mought come in, not knowin' you're thar. But you jes' holler an' he'll move on." She meant precisely what she said and saw no humor at all in such a possibility-but when the door closed, I could hear those girls stifling shrieks of laughter.

Literally, that night, I was a member of the family. I had a bed to myself—(the following night I was not so fortunate)— in one corner; behind the head of mine the old woman, the daughter-in-law and the baby had another in the other corner, and the old man with the two boys spread a pallet on the floor. That is the invariable rule of courtesy with the mountaineer, to give his bed to the stranger and take to the floor himself, and, in passing, let me say that never, in a long experience, have I seen the slightest consciousness-much less immodesty-in a mountain cabin in my life. The same attitude on the part of the visitors is taken for granted-any other indeed holds mortal possibilities of offence-so that if the visitor has common sense, all embarrassment passes at once. The door was closed, the fire blazed on uncovered, the smothered talk and laughter of the two

the night passed in peace.

It must have been near daybreak that I was aroused by the old man leaving the cabin and I heard voices and the sound of

he was grinning.

"Hit's your mules."

"Who found them?"

"The Wild Dog had 'em," he said.

N this professional career seem to have been exemplified the natural results of the combination of an innate talent so positive that it scarcely had need of the usual training in the schools and of a singleness of purpose which was almost equally out of the common. All the talent that a man may have is required to make him an artist, Mr. Johnson was in the habit of declaring, "and all his time." In the fulfilment of this last hard condition he was aided by an admirable constitution, unfailing good health, a very sound digestion, and a physical strength given to but few. Till within the last few years of his life, notwithstanding his advanced age and the fact that he was a somewhat heavy man, it' was his custom to ascend each morning to his studio in the top of his residence in West Fifty-fifth Street (and he would not have an elevator installed), and paint steadily, standing, from nine or ten in the morning till dusk. Not even for his frugal luncheon, as his family testify, would he always interrupt his work. When brought up to him, he took it while still on his feet. George Inness is said to have painted fifteen hours a day when sufficiently absorbed in his work, and also to have generally worked standing, even on small canvases. To paint continuously for more than a few hours, in the most comfortable of circumstances, without losing freshness of judgment and sureness of eye, is difficult enough, as the painters know. In the early summer, when the household arrangements were being made for the annual removal to Nantucket, Mr. Johnson

would work till the last day and begin again immediately when in his island studio. From his first sitter, the family cook-portrayed surreptitiously by escaping from the church organ loft Sunday morning during service and hastening homeward-to the last, in the winter of the present year, he accomplished a prodigious amount of work.

The cook's portrait was so evidently a likeness that the paternal wrath was disarmed; and, for once, the pathway of art was made smooth. It is pleasant to record the adventures of fairy princes and the lives of successful artists which may be said to approach them in joy of achievement and freedom from sordid details--privations, failures, and despairs. The father of this painter, Philip Carrigan Johnson-who seems to have recognized his son's talent with commendable promptness-was a distinguished citizen of Maine, having held the office of Secretary of State for thirty years, under succeeding administrations. There had been an uncle, Major Johnson, in the Continental Army. Of the eight children of Philip Carrigan and Mary Chandler Johnson, two of the three sons attained eminence, the youngest, Philip C., Jr., rising to the rank of rear-admiral in the United States navy. Eastman first saw the light in the small town of Lovell, near Fryeburg, in the western part of Maine, in the summer of 1824. His earliest recollections, as he records in his notes, were of the family's removal to Fryeburg, and when he was nine, they again moved, to Augusta, the capital. He does not appear to have particularly distinguished himself at school, and at the age of fifteen was placed in a country store.

Becoming convinced in the course of a twelvemonth that, in his own words, he was "not going to be any credit to his master," and having so informed him, he abandoned commerce and all its ways.

His father accordingly secured him a situation in a lithographic establishment in Boston, where he soon made himself valuable in designing titles for books, music, etc. Of this, also, he wearied at the end of a year, went back to Augusta, took a room in his father's house and began his portrait work, his sitters including members of the Legislature and other prominent citizens. These portraits were crayon drawings, the general demand for which had not yet been diminished by the introduction of photography. He visited Newport, and spent a season in Portland, Me., where he executed the portraits of Longfellow's parents and of his sister, Mrs. Pierce, there resident. But the capital of the nation, with its official character, its foreign residents and changing population, seemed to offer the most promising field for his art, and to Washington he accordingly went, some little time before his family followed him. Governor Fairfield of Maine, having become Senator from that State, wished to obtain for Mr. Johnson, Sr., the post of chief clerk in the Department of the Navy, this post being that afterward known as that of Assistant Secretary. But "the pressure of politics" prevented his appointment, and Mr. John son became, instead, chief clerk in the Bureau of Construction and Repairs. This office he held during the rest of his life; in his later years he took for his second wife Mrs. Mary James, née Washington, a sister of Richard Washington and one of the nearest relatives then living of the Father of his Country. In 1845 Eastman was established in a successful practice; one of the Senate committee rooms in the Capitol was given him for a studio, and it was in this august atelier that he executed the portrait of the widow of Alexander Hamilton in 1846. That of Mrs. Dorothea Payne Madison, relict of "the great little Madison," as she herself qualified him, was done in her own residence, this sprightly lady being still in the flower of her popularity. "Mrs. Madison is a particular pet," wrote Mr. James M. Mason to Miss Chew, "being only fourscore years." Mr. Johnson drew her, as we may still see, in the then some

what old-fashioned turban and "shortwaisted, puff-sleeved, gored, velvet gown" to which she still clung, and to which she lent such a grace that not even "critical young girls" would have had her change. It is related that Daniel Webster was so pleased with this portrait that he wished to possess it, and the artist executed a replica for him. On a commission from Governor R. C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Johnson drew a portrait of Webster, at the same sittings which the statesman was giving Healy, the painter, for the collection of Louis Philippe of some of the most distinguished Americans for the galleries of Versailles (1845). In 1886 Governor Winthrop presented the Massachusetts Historical Society with a photograph of this crayon portrait, "which has been hanging on my walls for forty years," and which, he said, had also been lithographed. The original drawings of the portraits of Dolly Madison and Mrs. Hamilton, as well as a small one of Webster, are still in the possession of Mrs. Eastman Johnson, as are, indeed, very many others-drawings and paintings, portraits and genre

"the original is the best, and that you cannot have," being the artist's usual formula.

John Quincy Adams also sat for him, as did General Sewell, an old Revolutionary officer, Judges Story and McLean of the Supreme Court, some of the foreign ministers, members of Congress, etc. Professor Morse, who was "still esteemed as a painter," came to see him, and as he was leaving said: "Well, you can reach the top of the ladder if you wish to." The Washington sojourn was broken by summer excursions to Augusta, and terminated by a return to Boston, where Longfellow gave him commissions for portraits of himself and of his friends Emerson, Hawthorne, Charles Sumner and President Felton of Harvard. The first of these made a great impression upon the artist; in later life he was wont to describe with much enthusiasm the geniality, the amiability, the great personal charm of the Sage of Concord. In Boston he established his studio first in Amory Hall, and later in Tremont Temple, on the site of the old Tremont Theatre, opened in 1827. His friend, George Henry Hall, still living, had also a studio in this building; and among his fellow-practitioners was Samuel W. Rowse, one of the most successful of these "crayon-limners," but who had been an