To New England the bean is an obsession; it is rapidly becoming a superstition.  To the stranger it is an infliction; but, bad as the bean is to the uninitiated, it is a luscious morsel compared with the flavorless cod-fish ball which lodges in the throat and stays there—­a second Adam’s apple—­for lack of something to wash it down.

If pork and beans is the device of the Puritans, the cod-fish ball is the invention of the devil.  It is as if Satan looked on enviously while his foes prepared their powder of beans, and then, retiring to his bottomless pit, went them one better by casting his ball of cod-fish.

  “But from the parlor of the inn
  A pleasant murmur smote the ear,
  Like water rushing through a weir;
  Oft interrupted by the din
  Of laughter and of loud applause

  “The firelight, shedding over all
  The splendor of its ruddy glow,
  Filled the whole parlor large and low.”

The room remains, but of all that jolly company which gathered in Longfellow’s days and constituted the imaginary weavers of tales and romances, but one is alive to-day,—­the “Young Sicilian.”

  “A young Sicilian, too, was there;
  In sight of Etna born and bred,
  Some breath of its volcanic air
  Was glowing in his heart and brain,
  And, being rebellious to his liege,
  After Palermo’s fatal siege,
  Across the western seas he fled,
  In good king Bomba’s happy reign. 
  His face was like a summer night,
  All flooded with a dusky light;
  His hands were small; his teeth shone white
  As sea-shells, when he smiled or spoke.”

To the present proprietor of the inn the “Young Sicilian” wrote the following letter: 

Rome, July 4, 1898.

Dear Sir,—­In answer to your letter of June 8, I am delighted to learn that you have purchased the dear old house and carefully restored and put it back in its old-time condition.  I sincerely hope that it may remain thus for a long, long time as a memento of the days and customs gone by.  It is very sad for me to think that I am the only living member of that happy company that used to spend their summer vacations there in the fifties; yet I still hope that I may visit the old Inn once more before I rejoin those choice spirits whom Mr. Longfellow has immortalized in his great poem.  I am glad that some of the old residents still remember me when I was a visitor there with Dr. Parsons (the Poet), and his sisters, one of whom, my wife, is also the only living member of those who used to assemble there.  Both my wife and I remember well Mr. Calvin Howe, Mr. Parmenter, and the others you mention; for we spent many summers there with Professor Treadwell (the Theologian) and his wife, Mr. Henry W. Wales (the Student), and other visitors not mentioned in the poem, till the death of Mr. Lyman Howe (the Landlord), which broke up the party.  The “Musician” and the “Spanish Jew,” though not imaginary characters, were never guests at the “Wayside Inn.”  I remain,