“I should love to see your garden now.  There is a peculiar satisfaction in having a very little patch all blooming into beauty.  I had such an one in my humble home in Boston, some years ago.  It used to make me think of Mary Howitt’s very pleasant poetry: 

  “’Yes, in the poor man’s garden grow
    Far more than herbs and flowers;
  Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind,
    And joy for weary hours.’

“I have one enjoyment this summer, which you cannot have in your city premises.  The birds! not only their sweet songs, but all their little cunning manoeuvres in courting, building their nests, and rearing their young.  I watched for hours a little Phoebe-bird, who brought out her brood to teach them to fly.  They used to stop to rest themselves on the naked branch of a dead pear-tree.  There they sat so quietly, all in a row, in their sober russet suit of feathers, just as if they were Quakers at meeting.  The birds are very tame here; thanks to Friend Joseph’s tender heart.  The Bob-o-links pick seed from the dandelions, at my very feet.  May you sleep like a child when his friends are with him, as the Orientals say.  And so farewell.”

Interesting strangers occasionally called to see Friend Hopper, attracted by his reputation.  Frederika Bremer was peculiarly delighted by her interviews with him, and made a fine sketch of him in her collection of American likenesses.  William Page, the well-known artist, made for me an admirable drawing of him, when he was a little past seventy years old.  Eight years after, Salathiel Ellis, of New-York, at the suggestion of some friends, executed an uncommonly fine medallion likeness.  A reduced copy of this was made in bronze at the request of some members of the Prison Association.  The reverse side represents him raising a prisoner from the ground, and bears the appropriate inscription, “To seek and to save that which was lost.”

Young people often sent him pretty little testimonials of the interest he had excited in their minds.  Intelligent Irish girls, with whom he had formed acquaintance in their native land, never during his life ceased to write to him, and occasionally sent some tasteful souvenir of their friendship.  The fashionable custom of New-Year’s and Christmas offerings was not in his line.  But though he always dined on humble fare at Christmas, as a testimony against the observance of holy days, he secretly sent turkeys to poor families, who viewed the subject in a different light; and it was only by accidental circumstances that they at last discovered to whom they owed the annual gift.

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