The Editors of The Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, and The Smart Set, The H. B. Stevens Company, The Oliver Ditson Company, and Messrs. G. Schirmer & Company, have kindly permitted the republication of several poems in this collection.
INTRODUCTION
Arthur Macy was a Nantucket boy of Quaker extraction. His name alone is evidence of this, for it is safe to say that a Macy, wherever found in the United States, is descended from that sturdy old Quaker who was one of those who bought Nantucket from the Indians, paid them fairly for it, treated them with justice, and lived on friendly terms with them. In many ways Arthur Macy showed that he was a Nantucketer and, at least by descent, a Quaker. He often used phrases peculiar to our island in the sea, and was given, in conversation at least, to similes which smacked of salt water. Almost the last time I saw him he said, "I'm coming round soon for a good long gam."
He was a many-sided man. In his intercourse with a friend like myself he would show the side which he thought would interest me, and that only. He was above all things cheery, and, to his praise be it said, he hated a bore. I remember that a mutual friend was talking baseball to me by the yard. Arthur was sitting by, listening. It was a subject in which he was much interested. Nevertheless, turning to our mutual friend, he said, "Don't talk baseball to him. He don't care anything about it, he don't know anything about it, and he don't want to." On the other hand, although little given to telling of his war experiences, he was always ready to talk over the old days with me. Of what he did himself, he modestly said but little, but of the services of others, more especially of the men in the ranks, he was generous in his praise.
Early in the war Macy enlisted in Company B, 24th Michigan Volunteer Infantry. He was twice wounded on the first day at Gettysburg, and managed to crawl into the town and get as far as the steps of the Court House, which was fast filling with wounded from both sides. His sense of humor was in evidence even at such a time. A Confederate officer rode up and asked, "Have those men in there got arms?" Quick as a flash Macy answered: "Some of them have and some of them haven't." He remained in this Court-House hospital, a prisoner within the Confederate lines, until the battle was over and Lee's army retreated. All wounded prisoners who could walk were forced to go with them, but Macy's wound was in the foot, and, fortunately for him, he was spared the horrors of a Southern prison.