He suggested to him that while it might be fine and patriotic to declaim "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd," from the steps of the monument at midnight, the police might take another view of the performance.

He began to see, however, that beneath much that was whimsical and sentimental the young fellow was sincerely interested in the trend of things in what, during this Whitman period, he called "these states." Sometimes Allen's remarks on current events struck Harwood by their wisdom: the boy was wholesomely provocative and stimulating.

He began to feel that he understood him, and in his own homelessness Allen became a resource.
Allen was a creature of moods, and vanished often for days or weeks.

He labored fitfully in his carpenter shop at home or with equal irregularity at a bench in the shop of Lueders, a cabinetmaker.

Dan sometimes sought him at the shop, which was a headquarters for radicals of all sorts.