Chapter VI

With  Paulding, Drake, and
Halleck

IN the summer of 1797, a tall, well-
built lad with a face showing just
a suggestion of melancholy, landed
from the weekly market sloop and
walked along the streets of New
York for the first time. He was a
country boy, well versed in tr^ees and
brooks and used to pathless hills and
rough country roads, and his first im¬
pression of New York was that the
dwellers there were great lumpkins.
He could not imagine why they
pointed at him and nodded at him
and laughed as he walked in the
middle of the street, quite disregard¬
ing the paved walk. He stopped,
from time to time, to ask his way,
106