They say that “woman’s work is never done,” but to the women of Mickle Street this does not apply—­but stay! perhaps their work is never done.  Anyway, I remember that women sat on the curbs in calico dresses or leaned out of the windows, and all seemed supremely free from care.

“Can you tell me where Mr. Whitman lives?” I asked a portly dame who was resting her elbows on a windowsill.

“Who?”

“Mr. Whitman!”

“You mean Walt Whitman?”

“Yes.”

“Show the gentleman, Molly; he’ll give you a nickel, I’m sure!”

I had not seen Molly.  She stood behind me, but as her mother spoke she seized tight hold of one of my fingers, claiming me as her lawful prey, and all the other children looked on with envious eyes as little Molly threw at them glances of scorn and marched me off.  Molly was five, going on six, she told me.  She had bright-red hair, a grimy face and little chapped feet that made not a sound as we walked.  She got her nickel and carried it in her mouth, and this made conversation difficult.  After going one block she suddenly stopped, squared me around and pointing said, “Them is he!” and disappeared.

In a wheeled rattan chair, in the hallway, a little back from the door of a plain, weather-beaten house, sat the coatless philosopher, his face and head wreathed in a tumult of snow-white hair.

I had a little speech, all prepared weeks before and committed to memory, that I intended to repeat, telling him how I had read his poems and admired them.  And further I had stored away in my mind a few blades from “Leaves of Grass” that I purposed to bring out at the right time as a sort of certificate of character.  But when that little girl jerked me right-about-face and heartlessly deserted me, I stared dumbly at the man whom I had come a hundred miles to see.  I began angling for my little speech, but could not fetch it.

“Hello!” called the philosopher, out of the white aureole.  “Hello! come here, boy!”

He held out his hand and as I took it there was a grasp with meaning in it.

“Don’t go yet, Joe,” he said to a man seated on the step smoking a cob-pipe.

“The old woman’s calling me,” said the swarthy Joe.

Joe evidently held truth lightly.  “So long, Walt!”

“Good-by, Joe.  Sit down, lad; sit down!”

I sat in the doorway at his feet.

“Now isn’t it queer—­that fellow is a regular philosopher and works out some great problems, but he’s ashamed to express ’em.  He could no more give you his best than he could fly.  Ashamed, I s’pose, ashamed of the best that is in him.  We are all a little that way—­all but me—­I try to write my best, regardless of whether the thing sounds ridiculous or not—­regardless of what others think or say or have said.  Ashamed of our holiest, truest and best!  Is it not too bad?