"Come in fifteen minutes!" says the editor, with a droll mixture of fun and despair.
Brainard makes a few observations, and sits down at his little narrow pine table--hacked along edges with many a restless penknife. He seems to notice the marks, and pausing a moment, says,--
"This table reminds me of one of my brother William's stories. There was an old man in Groton, who had but one child, and she was a daughter. When she was about eighteen, several young men came to see her. At last she picked out one of them, and desired to marry him. He seemed a fit match enough, but the father positively refused his consent. For a long time he persisted, and would give no reason for his conduct. At last he took his daughter aside, and said--'Now, Sarah, I think pretty well of this young man in general, but I've observed that he's given to whittling. There's no harm in that, but the point is this: he whittles and whittles, and never makes nothing! Now, I tell you, I'll never give my only daughter to such a feller as that!' Whenever Bill told this story, he used to insinuate that this whittling chap, who never made anything, was me! At any rate, I think it would have suited me exactly."
Some time passed in similar talk, when, at last, Brainard turned suddenly, took up his pen, and began to write. I sat apart, and left him to his work. Some twenty minutes passed, when, with a smile on his face, he got up, approached the fire, and taking the candle to light his paper, read as follows:--
"The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain, While I look upwards to thee. It would seem As if God pour'd thee from his 'hollow hand,' And hung his bow upon thy awful front; And spoke in that loud voice that seem'd to him Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour's sake, 'The sound of many waters;' and had bade Thy flood to chronicle the ages back, And notch his cent'ries in the eternal rocks!"
He had hardly done reading when the boy came. Brainard handed him the lines--on a small scrap of coarse paper--and told him to come again in half-an-hour. Before this time had elapsed, he had finished and read me the following stanza:--
"Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we That hear the question of that voice sublime? Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung From war's vain trumpet by thy thundering side? Yea, what is all the riot man can make, In his short life, to thy unceasing roar? And yet, bold babbler, what art thou to Him Who drown'd a world, and heap'd the waters far Above its loftiest mountains? A light wave, That breathes and whispers of its Maker's might."