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The illness of Rudyard Kipling has brought to mind the fact that the author visited this region several years ago. During his boyhood in India, he lived in the town where resided a daughter of Rev. Dr. R. T Taylor, for many years president of Beaver College. Dr. Taylor's daughter was the wife of a civil servant attache at Hyderabad, and the two families by reason of their nationality became very intimate. After Mr. Kipling had left India and was making his home in England, shortly before he took up his residence in Vermont, he came to this country on a visit and reading tour. Beaver was among the places he visited, and he put in a fortnight or more there as the guest of Dr. Taylor and other prominent families in the valley.
Many interesting anecdotes are told of him since that time. His habits were naturally much influenced by the life he had lived in India. It is related that one morning just after he arrived, a messenger was sent from the house where he was a guest to a barber in the town to have him come with his tools and shave the distinguished literateur. The knight of the razor set off posthaste, supposing that his waiting customer was ill. He found him in bed, but in remarkable spirits for one who, as he thought, was too ill to sit up. As he was about to leave, he discovered that if there was any one ill in the residence it was not Mr. Kipling, and that his presence had been required simply because the creator of "Mowgli" and his jungle friend did not like to be shaved after he arose. The barber still tells with gusto of his daily visits to the famous Englishman.