About this time occurred an amusing incident of their raw young mess-servant, fresh from Ireland:  “A table-cloth had taken fire and was in full blaze; Paddy was at the moment filling a teapot from an ample kettle in his hand.  ‘Pour the water on the table!’ called out one of the officers.  ‘Sure, the wather is hot, your honor!’ exclaimed Paddy, in great dismay, holding the kettle at a very safe distance from the blazing cloth, and his face such a picture of helpless despair as to make Mr. Cooper heartily laugh at every after-thought of it.”

The passing of thirty or more years made of this light-hearted young midshipman a well-known writer, with the purpose that his next book should tell of this unforgettable region of the great lakes.  He wished to-bring into it the sailors and Indians as, by coming in close contact with them, “he knew their personalities and characteristics.”  Then, forest scenes without “Natty Bumppo” could scarce come from his pen after the drawings of old “Leatherstocking” of “The Pioneers,” “Hawkeye” of “The Mohicans,” and the “aged trapper” of “The Prairie.”  So it came about that “Natty, the lover,” stepped into these pages—­Natty, “so simple, so tender, so noble and true—­what shall be said of him?  We must all needs love him; it is not with words but with tears that we wring his hand and part from him on the lake shore” as “The Pathfinder.”  Glowing and brave proved his Mabel, as “the bubble of a boat floated on the very crest of a foaming breaker,”—­yet not for him.  But the ripple of the lake’s waves and rustling of forest leaves are as unforgettable as the low, sweet tones of “Dew-of-June.”  Of “The Pathfinder” and Cooper Balzac wrote:  “Its interest is tremendous.  He surely owed us this masterpiece after the last two or three raphsodies he has given us.”

[Illustration:  THE PATHFINDER.]

[Illustration:  A BUBBLE OF A BOAT.]

In the year 1809 Cooper was attached to a gun-boat serving on Lake Champlain, and on November 13 following, he was ordered to the Wasp, under Capt.  James Lawrence, of Burlington—­a personal friend, and also the heroic commander of the Chesapeake in her action with the Shannon, in which his last words were, “Don’t give up the ship!” It was aboard the Wasp that Cooper’s lifelong friendship with Commodore Shubrick of South Carolina began, who, like himself, and a year younger, was a midshipman.  To this friend the author dedicated “The Pilot,” “Red Rover,” and other stories.

[Illustration:  CAPTAIN LAWRENCE.]

[Illustration:  THE “WASP.”]

Political feeling ran high in those early days of 1809, and prominent persons did not escape from their opponents with hitter feeling only.  So it came about that in December of that year, Judge Cooper, on leaving a hot convention, met his death,—­the result of a blow on the head, as he was coming down the steps of the State capitol at Albany, New York.  No one of his day who was engaged in the work of large buying and selling of land made so deep an impression as did Judge Cooper on his times, and on his author son, whose land books disclose to posterity with historic exactness the hardships and values of the pioneers of our country.