Charming young lady, Miss Julia by name,
Your friend, little Cally, your wishes proclaim;
Read this and you'll soon learn to know it,
I'm not your papa the great lyric poet.
J. FENIMORE COOPER.
On page 155 of "The Cooperstown Centennial" there appears "A new glimpse of Cooper"—caught and kept by yet another little girl who firmly believed the author to be "a genuine lover of children." She writes that to meet him on the street "was always a pleasure. His eye twinkled, his face beamed, and his cane pointed at you with a smile and a greeting of some forthcoming humor. When I happened to be passing the gates of the old Hall, and he and Mrs. Cooper were driving home from his farm, I often ran to open the gate for him, which trifling act he always acknowledged with old-time courtesy. His fine garden joined my father's, and once, being in the vicinity of the fence, he tossed me several muskmelons to catch, which at that time were quite rare." In 1844 Mr. Cooper sent this youthful miss a picture-book, "The Young American's Library." "The Primer" came with a note "written on large paper, with a large seal." It was a reprint from an English copy, and kept for sixty years, it is still thought "delightful reading." In part the accompanying note reads: "
Hall, Cooperstown, April 22, 1844. Mr. Fenimore Cooper begs Miss Alice Worthington will do him the favor to accept the accompanying book (which was written expressly for Princess Alice of Great Britain).
"Mr. Cooper felt quite distressed for Miss Worthington's muff during the late hot weather, and begs to offer her the use of his new ice-house should the muff complain." Miss Alice and her cousin were out walking a very warm April day, with their "precious muffs, which gave him the merry thought about the ice-house."
