Bridgeton Pioneer

Emerson and the Guides.

The poet Emerson was never credited with being a handsome man, though people who knew him saw in his face his beautiful character and forgot to discriminate between him and his appearance. Years ago, when the "philosophers" were in camp at Follensbee pond, in the Adirondacks, Emerson was one of the party, and his devotion to his studies and "worthless writin" seemed to several of the guides a great waste of time, which might better have been spent in hunting and fishing.

There was, however, a guide, Steven Martin, who became perhaps the most noted that the Adirondacks ever produced, and who recognized in Emerson something of his real worth and upon whom the poet made a great impression.

"Steve," as he was familiarly called, was an observing man, and the poet's physical defects, then undoubtedly more prominent than in later years, did not escape his eye, as may be seen from the answer he gave to the question of the writer of this paragraph, "What kind of a fellow was Emerson?"

"Waal, sir," said the old guide, "he was a gentleman every inch, as nice a fellow as you ever see; pleasant and kind, and a scholar, too, allus figgerin, studyin and writin; but, sir, he was, I believe, the all fired est homeliest critter for his age that ever came into these woods."—Troy Times.