TOBACCO LEAVES 



delicate hands as they were to chisel 

 such a gigantic figure; but just the 

 hands to manipulate a cigarette. 



A few years later, in April, 1875, I saw 

 my first great smoker. It was on the one 

 hundredth anniversary of the battle of 

 Lexington. I, with a bunch of other boys, 

 was on my way to Lexington, having risen 

 and started early from Boston, to help 

 carry the thing off properly. We had 

 walked and run all the way, and were about 

 a mile from the old Concord Bridge, where 

 the first shot of the Revolution was fired, 

 when along the dusty, sun-kissed road 

 came a lot of open carriages, four gentle- 

 men to a carriage. We waited for them, 

 and in one landau, on the rear seat, sat a 

 quiet, impassive, purposeful, masterful 

 gentleman, with a big cigar in his mouth, 

 smoking. It was our hero, President 

 Grant, and our yells could be heard a mile 

 as we raced beside his carriage. He looked 



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