i 4 8 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



present the appearance of a 'tramp.' I have heard him 

 say that when on one of his walking tours he visited a little 

 town in the interior of the state for the purpose of having 

 a talk with the Governor of Pennsylvania who was at a 

 hotel there. My father went to the office and asked for 

 a room; the clerk although he concluded to take in the 

 dusty stranger, laden with very odd baggage, gave him a 

 small room in the part of the house reserved for the 

 humblest guests. My father with characteristic modesty, 

 meekly took the quarters assigned him, went upstairs 

 with his luggage, washed and dressed, came down stairs 

 where he met the Governor in the office receiving a 

 hearty and friendly greeting. The clerk at the earliest 

 possible moment told him he had a better room now 

 vacant and suggested that he should move. My father 

 used to tell this story with great glee. 



"His relations with children were delightful. I 

 remember very well in my own childhood how fertile his 

 imagination was in making up fairy tales for my amuse- 

 ment. One thing only I disapproved. After the hero 

 and heroine had gone through marvelous adventures, 

 escaped desperate perils from ogres, witches, wild beasts, 

 etc., by the exercise of their skill and ingenuity or the 

 intervention of good fairies, and were safely and happily 

 married, he could never be induced to stop there and, in 

 spite of all my attempts at interruption, it was always 

 announced that 'they lived happily ever afterward, 

 until one day in going by a soap boiler's they unfortu- 

 nately fell into a vat and were made into soap.' 



"The first distinct picture of my father in my own 

 mind is of his meeting my mother and myself at a railroad 

 station apparently on one of the rare occasions when we 

 were traveling for a time by different routes. The 



