Before we pass with our young Quaker from the farm to the world at large, let us correct an erroneous statement that has been made about him. It has been said that he worked at the trade of shoemaking when a boy. The truth is that almost every farmer in those days was accustomed to do a little cobbling of his own, and what shoemaker's work Whittier performed was done by him solely as an amateur in his father's house.
In the year of his _début_ as a poet (1826), he being then nineteen years of age, Whittier began attending the Haverhill Academy, or Latin School. Whether his parents were influenced to take this step for his advantage by the visit of the editor Garrison, and by his evident taste for learning, is not positively known, but it is quite possible that such was the case. In 1827 he read an original ode at the dedication of the new Academy. The building is still standing on Winter Street. While at the Academy he read history very thoroughly, and his writings show that it has always been a favorite study with him. He also contributed poems at this time to the _Haverhill Gazette_. Many of them were in the Scotch dialect: it would be interesting to see a few of these; but unfortunately no file of the _Gazette_ for those years can be found. A friendly rival in the writing of Scotch poems was good Robert Dinsmore, the "Farmer Poet of Windham," as Whittier calls him. A few specimens of Farmer Dinsmore's verse have been preserved. Take this on "The Sparrow":--
"Poor innocent and hapless Sparrow! Why should my moul-board gie thee sorrow? This day thou'll chirp, and mourn the morrow Wi' anxious breast; The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow Deep o'er thy nest!
Just i' the middle o' the hill Thy nest was placed wi' curious skill, There I espied thy little bill Beneath the shade. In that sweet bower, secure frae ill, Thine eggs were laid.
Five corns o' maize had there been drappit, An' through the stalks thy head was pappit, The drawing nowt could na be stappit I quickly foun', Syne frae thy cozie nest thou happit, Wild fluttering roun'.
The sklentin stane beguiled the sheer, In vain I tried the plough to steer, A wee bit stumpie i' the rear Cam 'tween my legs, An' to the jee-side gart me veer An' crush thine eggs."