Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-03-10

Tered the man a piece of tobacco. Two
or three weeks afterward he came in
again. At the time 1 happened to be IN
the throes of composing a campaign
song for the White Eagle club, a political
organization of which L was president.
".Ah,' said my visitor, I see you are
writing; I'll call again
a moment 1 called to him.
Perhaps you can help me. I'm trying
to write a song for my political club
He Immediately showed interest and
sat down hen 1 began to explain the
matter to him.
"Let me have your pencil he said.
At that moment a customer came in. In
about fit teen minutes l returned to my
| visitor.
There he said, handing me the pa
per, how will that do?' What was my
surprise when I saw written a song of
five stanzas with chorus. At this mo-
ment, nearly sixty years later, l can
only remember a few lines, which ran
thus:
See the White Eagle soaring aloft to
the sky,
| Weakening the broad welkin with his
loud battle cry;
Then here's the Write Eagle, full dar-
ing is he,
AS he sails on his pinions DER valley and
sea-
Il was delighted n wanted to pay
him something for his trouble, but the
only thing he would accept was a bag
Of my best coffee. AS he was going out
1 said 1 would like to know his name.
,"'Certainly,' he answered, with a faint
smile, 'Thaddeus X. Perley, at your SER
vice.
Il had Mr.. Perley's' song set to music
and we sang it with great success
throughout the campaign. But l saw
nothing of it's author. 1 felt curious
about a man who could drop into a shop,
write a poem and leave again inside Of
fifteen or twenty minutes.
"One of my friends was Fitz-Greene
HallecR, then private secretary to John
Jacob Aston, whose office was in a small
brick building in Prince street two doors
from Broadway and only a few steps
from my store. Halleck would often
come around to the shop in the evening.
I had partitioned off d cozy corner with
a pile of tea boxes, and there we would
sit and discuss the topics of the day. FIRE.
quently old Grant Thorburn would join
us, and he was welcome, for he was
brimful Of incidents of the century he
had left behind him, and never spoiled
a good story in the telling.
zone night after Halleck, Thorburn and
myself had been ensconced in our corner
for several hours talking of many things
and feeling the more comfortable for a
storm outside, Halleck and 1 decided that
it was time to conduct our old friend,
who had been sampling my stock of vim
tage with some ZeSt, to his fOwery king
dom next door. We put him to bed and
then returned to the shop. 1 was sur
prlSed to see a man standing by the
counter. I stepped quickly forward.
why, good evening, Mr.. Perley,' I
began. Halleck interrupted me: Great
heavens, Poe, is this your he exclaimed.
Poe? This is Mr.. Perley,' l broke in.
Poe looked at me and then at Hal
leck, and after an instant's hesitation
said: The fact Of the matter is, Hal
leck, 1 have made this gentleman's ac-
quaintance under the name of Perley;
no harm was intended and none done. L
knew hat the facts would develop
themselves. / have walked several miles
through the sleet and rain, and, seeing
a light in here, thought hat perhaps
Mr.. Harrison would let me warm up
somewhat
"'Why, of course I answered, here
is the stove behind the tea boxes almost
red hot. Take off your coat and dry it.
What will you have, some of this old
port?' I spread out some crackers, an
old English pineapple cheese, and we all
nibbled and bent our elbows in homage
to his crimson majesty, the old port, and
talked Of pleasant things until my big
clock struck the hour Of midnight. Poe
left with Halleck and stopped at his
house that night. He returned to his
home in Philadelphia the next day, T be-
lieve, but soon afterward came to New
York to reside.
Poe died in 1919, and quite accidentally
in 1852, l made the acquaintance of his
mother-in-law, Mrs. Marie GLENN. Law
yer S. d. Lewis, the husband Of Stella
Lewis, the poet, invited me to his house
in Dean street, Brooklyn, and there, to
my utter establishment, 1 met Mrs.
GLENN, of whom Poe had spoken to me
many times. She was a handsome old
lady, with white hair, half covered by a
p~rettily trimmed cap. We talked much
about her Eddie as she called Poe, and
not a great while afterward, so quickly
did our friendship grow, she named me
her second Eddie, and asked me to call
her 'Muddie,' as Poe had done. Mr..
Lewis gave Mrs. GLENN a comfortable
home for many years, but finally the
Lewis family was broken up, and Mrs.
GLENN was taken to the Church home in
Baltimore. While she was there l pre-
sented her with a portrait of Poe, COL
ored with the hues of his eyes, hair, COM
pleXion and dress, which 1 made from
the daguerreotype I took of him myself
in 1S47. Mrs. GLENN was so grateful for