[Pg i]

KENTUCKY IN
AMERICAN LETTERS

[Pg ii]

OTHER WORKS BY MR. TOWNSEND

Richard Hickman Menefee. 1907
Kentuckians in History and Literature. 1907
The Life of James Francis Leonard. 1909
Kentucky: Mother of Governors. 1910
Lore of the Meadowland. 1911

[Pg iii]

KENTUCKY IN
AMERICAN LETTERS
1784-1912

BY

JOHN WILSON TOWNSEND

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

JAMES LANE ALLEN

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II

THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
NINETEEN THIRTEEN

[Pg iv]

Of this edition one thousand sets have been printed, of which
this is number

241

Copyright 1913
By The Torch Press
Published September 1913

[Pg v]

To
Mary Katherine Bullitt
and
Samuel Judson Roberts
and to their memories

[Pg vii]
[Pg vi]

CONTENTS

KENTUCKY IN AMERICAN LETTERS

JAMES NEWTON BASKETT

[Pg 1]

James Newton Baskett, novelist and scientist, was born near Carlisle, Kentucky, November 1, 1849. He was taken to Missouri in early life by his parents. He was graduated from the University of Missouri in 1872, since which time he has devoted himself almost exclusively to fiction and to comparative vertebrate anatomy, with ornithology as his particular specialty. At the world's congress of ornithologists at the Columbian Exposition in 1893, Mr. Baskett presented a paper on Some Hints at the Kinship of Birds as Shown by Their Eggs, which won him the respect of scientists from many lands. He has published three scientific works and three novels: The Story of the Birds (New York, 1896); The Story of the Fishes (New York, 1899); The Story of the Amphibians and Reptiles (New York, 1902); and his novels: At You All's House (New York, 1898); As the Light Led (New York, 1900); and his most recent book, Sweet Brier and Thistledown (Boston, 1902). Of this trio of tales the first one, At You All's House, is the best and the best known, Mr. Baskett's masterpiece hitherto. For the Texas Historical Society he wrote, in 1907, a series of papers upon the Early Spanish Expedition in the South and Southwest. With the exception of three years spent in Colorado for the benefit of his health, Mr. Baskett has resided at Mexico, Missouri, since leaving Kentucky.

Bibliography. The Athenaeum (July 28, 1900); The Book Buyer (October, 1900); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. i).

[Pg 2]

"I 'OVES 'OO BEST, 'TAUS 'OO BEAT 'EM ALL"[1]

[From As the Light Led (New York, 1900)]

They had been boy and girl together, not schoolmates nor next-farm neighbors, but their homes were in the same region. Her father's house was far enough away to make the boy's visits not so frequent as to foster the familiarity which breeds contempt, yet they gave him an occasional little journey out of the humdrum of home lanes, and away from the monotonous sweep of the prairie's flat horizon.

Hers was rather a timber farm, located on the other side of Flint Creek, where the woods began to fringe out upon the treeless plain again; but his was high out eastward upon the prairie swell, several miles from water. From his place the wooded barrier between them seemed only a brown level brush-stroke upon the sky's western margin.

Sometimes, when he was tired from his day's work afield, he watched the sun sink behind this border, which the distance made so velvety; and, if the day were clear, it looked to him as if the great glowing ball were lying down upon a cushion for its comfort. If it set in a bank of cloud or storm, it seemed to send up long streaming, reaching stripes, as if it waved a farewell to the sky, and stretched a last grasp at the day as it left it, or shot a rocket of distress as it sank.

When a child he had often sent her his good-will upon the westering messenger, and he imagined that the beams, sometimes shot suddenly out from beneath a low-hung cloudy curtain, were answers to his greetings. Long after it was dreary at his place, he fancied the light was still cuddling somewhere in the brush near her and that it was cheery yet over there.

When he was seven and she was three, he was visiting at her house one day. She was sitting on a bench in the old, long porch, shouting to him, her elder brother, and some others, as they came toward her from a romp out in the orchard. Suddenly Bent bantered the boys for a race to the baby; and, swinging their limp wool hats in their hands, they sped toward her. The child caught the jubilance of the race, and when Bent dropped first[Pg 3] beside her, she grabbed him about the neck, laid the rose of her cheek against the tan of his, and said:

"I 'oves 'oo best, 'tause 'oo beat 'em all."

The act was an infant tribute to prowess, a bound here in babyhood of the heart which wants but does not weigh; of the body which asks but does not question. The boy felt his heart go to meet hers, so that the little girl stood ever after as his idol. As time went on, his reverence for her as a lisper grew as she became a lass; and though, out of the dawning to them of what the years might bring, there came eras of pure embarrassment, wherein their firmness and trust wavered a little, yet confiding companionship came anew and stayed, till some new revelation of each to self or other barred for a time again their ease and intimacy. They were man and woman now, with a consciousness of much that the grown-up state must finally mean to them, if this continued. There was the freedom from embarrassment which experience brings; but there came with all this a sort of proximity of hopes and aims, which, burdened sweetly with its own importance, persisted with a presage of a crisis down the line.

He could no longer ride up to her side as she left the stile at church, and, without a previous engagement or the lubricant of a commonplace, open a conversation right into the heart of things. When she responded to him now it was with a shy sort of confidence which admits so much yet defines so little. Yet never when they met did they fail to pick up the thread, which tended to bind them closer and closer, and give it a conscious snatch of greater strain, till, as either looked back at the skein of incidents, there came a delightful feeling of hopeless entanglement in this fibre of their fate. However, the ends of the filament were free and floating yet, as the fray of a swirling gossamer in the autumn wind. Day by day these two felt that these frayed ends would meet sometime; and hold? or snap? and then? and then!

Nothing had ever strongly tried their attachment. Yet there was creeping now into the heart of each a sort of heaviness—a wondering, at least—if the other was still holding true to the childish troth; a definite sort of mental distrust was abiding between them, along with a readiness to be equal to anything which an emergency might bring. But in their hearts they were lovers still.

[Pg 4]

JAMES LANE ALLEN

James Lane Allen, the foremost living American master of English prose, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, December 21, 1849. His home was situated some five miles from Lexington, on the old Parker's Mill road, and it was burned to the ground more than thirty years ago. He was the seventh and youngest child of Richard Allen, a Kentuckian, and his wife, Helen Foster Allen, a native of Mississippi. Lane Allen, as he was known in Kentucky until he became a distinguished figure in contemporary letters, was interested in books and Nature when a boy under his mother's tutelage. He was early at Kentucky University, now rechristened with its ancient name, Transylvania. Mr. Allen was valedictorian of the class of 1872; and five years later the degree of Master of Arts was granted him, after an amusing quibble with the faculty regarding the length of his oration, The Survival of the Fittest. He began his career as teacher of the district school at the rural village of Slickaway, which is now known as Fort Spring, about two miles from his birthplace. He taught this school but one year, when he went to Richmond, Missouri, to become instructor of Greek in the high school there. A few years later he established a school for boys at Lexington, Missouri. Mr. Allen returned to Kentucky to act as tutor in a private family near Lexington; and in 1878, he was elected principal of the Kentucky University Academy. He resigned this position, in 1880, to accept the chair of Latin and English in Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, which he occupied for two years, when he returned once more to Lexington, Kentucky, to open a private school for boys in the old Masonic Temple. In 1884 Mr. Allen discarded the teacher's garb for that of a man of letters, and since that time he has devoted his entire attention to literature.

[Pg 5]

While his kinsfolk and acquaintances regarded him with quiet wonder, if not alarmed astonishment, he carefully arranged his traveling bags and set his face toward the city of his dreams and thoughts—New York. Once there he shortly discovered that it was a deal easier to get into the kingdom of heaven than into the pages of the great periodicals, yet he had come to the city to make a name for himself in literature and he was not to be denied. His struggle was most severe, but his victory has been so complete that the bitterness of those days has been blown aside. The first seven or eight years of his life as a writer, Mr. Allen divided between New York, Cincinnati, and Kentucky. He finally quit Kentucky in 1893, and he has not been in the state since 1898, at which time his alma mater conferred the honorary degree of LL. D. upon him. He now resides in New York.

Mr. Allen began with short essays for The Critic, The Continent, The Independent, The Manhattan, and other periodicals; and he contributed some strong and fine poems to The Atlantic Monthly, The Interior, Harper's Monthly, Lippincott's Magazine, The Independent, and elsewhere. But none of these represented the true beginning of his work, of his career. His first short-story to attract general attention was Too Much Momentum, published in Harper's Magazine for April, 1885. It, however, was naturally rather stiff, as the author was then wielding the pen of a 'prentice. This was followed by a charming essay, The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, in Harper's for February, 1886, and which really pointed the path he was to follow so wonderfully well through the coming years.

His first noteworthy story, Two Gentlemen of Kentucky, appeared in The Century Magazine for April, 1888. Then followed fast upon each other's heels, The White Cowl; King Solomon of Kentucky, perhaps the greatest[Pg 6] short-story he has written; Posthumous Fame; Flute and Violin; and Sister Doloroso, all of which were printed in the order named, and in The Century, save Flute and Violin, which was originally published in Harper's Magazine for December, 1890. These "Kentucky tales and romances" were issued as Mr. Allen's first book, entitled Flute and Violin (New York, 1891; Edinburgh, 1892, two volumes). Many of the author's admirers have come to regard these stories as the finest work he has done. As backgrounds for them he wrote a series of descriptive and historical papers upon Kentucky, originally published in The Century and Harper's, and collected in book form under the title of the first of them, The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky (New York, 1892). Up to this time Mr. Allen had written nothing but short-stories, verses, and sketches. While living at Cincinnati he wrote his first novelette, John Gray (Philadelphia, 1893), which first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine for June, 1892. This is one of the author's strongest pieces of prose fiction, though it has been well-nigh forgotten in its original form.

These three books fitted Mr. Allen for the writing of an American classic, A Kentucky Cardinal (New York, 1894), another novelette, which was published in two parts in Harper's Magazine for May and June, 1894, prior to its appearance in book form. This, with its sequel, Aftermath (New York, 1895), is the most exquisite tale of nature yet done by an American hand. It at once defies all praise, or adverse criticism, being wrought out as perfectly as human hands can well do. At the present time the two stories may be best read in the large paper illustrated edition done by Mr. Hugh Thomson, the celebrated English artist, to which Mr. Allen contributed a charming introduction. Summer in Arcady (New York, 1896), which passed through the Cosmopolitan Magazine as Butterflies, was a rather realistic story of love and[Pg 7] Nature, and somewhat strongly drawn for the tastes of many people. When his complete works appear in twelve uniform volumes, in 1913 or 1914, this "tale of nature" will be entitled A Pair of Butterflies.

The Choir Invisible (New York, 1897), Mr. Allen's first really long novel, was an augmented John Gray, and it placed him in the forefront of American novelists. Mr. Orson Lowell's illustrated edition of this work is most interesting; and it was dramatized in 1899, but produced without success, as the author had prophesied. Later in the same year Two Gentlemen of Kentucky appeared as a bit of a book, and was cordially received by those of the author's admirers who continued to regard it as his masterpiece. The Reign of Law (New York, 1900), a tale of the Kentucky hemp-fields, of love, and evolution, was published in London as The Increasing Purpose, because of the Duke of Argyll's prior appropriation of that title for his scientific treatise. The prologue upon Kentucky hemp strengthened Mr. Allen's reputation as one of the greatest writers of descriptive prose ever born out of Europe. It was widely read and discussed—in at least one quarter of the country—with unnecessary bitterness, if not with blind bigotry.

The Mettle of the Pasture (New York, 1903), which was first announced as Crypts of the Heart, is a love story of great beauty, saturated with the atmosphere of Kentucky to a wonderful degree, yet it has not been sufficiently appreciated. For the five years following the publication of The Mettle, Mr. Allen was silent; but he was working harder than ever before in his life upon manuscripts which he has come to regard as his most vital contributions to prose fiction. In the autumn of 1908 his stirring speech at the unveiling of the monument to remember his hero, King Solomon of Kentucky, was read; and three months later The Last Christmas Tree, brief[Pg 8] prelude to his Christmas trilogy, appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. The Bride of the Mistletoe (New York, 1909), part first of the trilogy, is one of the finest fragments of prose yet published in the United States. It aroused criticism of various kinds in many quarters, one declaring it to be one thing, and one another, but all agreeing that it was something new and wonderful under our literary sun. The critics of to-morrow may discover that The Bride was the foundation-stone of the now much-heralded Chunk of Life School which has of late taken London by the ears. Yet, between The Bride and The Widow of the Bye Street a great gulf is fixed. Part two of the trilogy was first announced as A Brood of the Eagle, but it was finally published as The Doctor's Christmas Eve (New York, 1910). This, one of Mr. Allen's longest novels, was met by adverse criticism based on several grounds, but upon none more pointedly than what was alleged to be the unnatural precocity of the children, who do not appear to lightly flit through the pages in a way that our old-fashioned conventions would prescribe they should, but somewhat seem to clog the unfolding of the tale. Whatever estimate one may place upon The Doctor, he can scarcely be held to possess the subtile charm of The Bride. The third and final part of this much-discussed trilogy will hardly be published before 1914, or perhaps even subsequent to that date.

The Heroine in Bronze (New York, 1912), is Mr. Allen's latest novel. It is an American love story with all of the author's exquisite mastery of language again ringing fine and true. For the first time Mr. Allen largely abandons Kentucky as a landscape for his story, the action being in New York. The phrase "my country," that recurs throughout the book, succeeds the "Shield," which, in The Bride of the Mistletoe, was the author's appellation for Kentucky. The sequel to The Heroine—the story the boy wrote for the girl—is now preparing.

[Pg 9]

Twenty years ago Mr. Allen wrote, "Kentucky has little or no literature;" and while he did not write, perhaps, with the whole horizon of its range before him, there was substantial truth in the statement. The splendid sequel to his declaration is his own magnificent works. He pointed out the lack of merit in our literature, but he did a far finer and more fitting thing: he at once set out upon his distinguished career and has produced a literature for the state. He has created Kentucky and Kentuckians as things apart from the outside world, a miniature republic within a greater republic; and no one knows the land and the people other than imperfectly if one cannot see and feel that his conception is clear and sentient. With a light but firm touch he has caught the shimmering atmosphere of his own native uplands and the idiosyncrasies of their people with all the fidelity with which the camera gives back a material outline.

Bibliography. The Stories of James Lane Allen, by L. W. Payne, Jr., in The Sewanee Review (January, 1900); James Lane Allen's Country, by Arthur Bartlett, The Bookman (October, 1900); Famous Authors, by E. F. Harkins (Boston, 1901); Authors of Our Day in Their Homes, by F. W. Halsey (New York, 1902); Social Historians, by H. A. Toulmin, Jr. (Boston, 1911).

KING SOLOMON OF KENTUCKY: AN ADDRESS[2]

[From The Outlook (December 19, 1908)]

We are witnessing at present a revival of conflict between two ideas in our civilization that have already produced a colossal war; the idea of the greatness of our Nation as the welded and indissoluble greatness of the States, and the idea of the separate dignity and isolated power of each sovereign commonwealth. The spirit of the Nation reaches out more and more to absorb into itself its own parts, and each part draws back more and more into its own Attic supremacy and independence, feeling that its earlier struggles were its own struggles, that its heroes were[Pg 10] its own heroes, and that it has memories which refuse to blend with any other memories. It will willingly yield the luster of its daily life to the National sun, but by night it must see its own lighthouses around its frontiers—beacons for its own wandering mariner sons and a warning to the Nation itself that such lights are sacred wherever they stand and burn.

But if the State more and more resists absorption into the Federal life, then less and less can it expect the Nation to do what it insists is its own peculiar work; the greater is the obligation resting upon it to make known to the Nation its own peculiar past and its own incommunicable greatness. Among the States of the Union none belongs more wholly to herself and less to the Nation than does Kentucky; none perhaps will resist more passionately the encroachments of Federal control; and upon her rests the very highest obligation to write her own history and make good her Attic aloofness.

But there is no nobler or more eloquent way in which a State can set forth its annals than by memorializing its great dead. The flag of a nation is its hope; its monuments are its memories. But it is also true that the flag of a country is its memory, and that its monuments are its hopes. And both are needed. Each calls aloud to the other. If you should go into any land and see it covered with monuments and nowhere see its flag, you would know that its flag had gone down into the dust and that its hope was ended. If you should travel in a land and everywhere see its flag and nowhere its monuments, you would ask yourself, Has this people no past that it cares to speak of? and if it has, why does it not speak of it? But when you visit a country where you see the flag proudly flying and proud monuments standing everywhere, then you say, Here is a people who are great in both their hopes and in their memories, and who live doubly through the deeds of their dead.

Where are Kentucky's monuments for her battlefields? There are some; where are the others? Where are her monuments for her heroes that she insists were hers alone? Over her waves the flag of her hopes; where are the monuments that are her memories?

This man whom you memorialize to-day was not, in station or[Pg 11] habiliment, one of Kentucky's higher heroes; his battlefield was the battlefield of his own character; but the honor rightly heaped upon him at last makes one remember how many a battlefield and how many a hero remain forgotten. Not alone the fields and heroes of actual war, but of civic and moral and scientific and artistic leadership. These ceremonies—whom will they incite to kindred action elsewhere? What other monuments will they build?

There is a second movement broader than any question of State or National patriotism, in which these ceremonies also have their place. It is the essential movement of our time in the direction of a new philanthropy.

No line of Shakespeare has ever been perhaps more quoted than this: "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." It is true that he put the words into the mouth of a Roman of old; but they were true of the England of his time and they remained true for centuries after his death. But within the last one hundred years or less an entirely new spirit has been developed; a radically new way of looking at human history and at human character has superseded the old. The spirit and genius of our day calls for the recasting of Shakespeare's lines: Let the evil that men do be buried with them; let the good they did be found out and kept alive.

I wish to take one illustration of the truth of this from the history of English literature.

Do you know when and where it was that satire virtually ceased to exist in English literature? It was at the birthplace and with the birth of Charles Darwin. From Darwin's time, from the peak on which he stood, a long slope of English literature sinks backward and downward toward the past; and on that shadowy slope stand somewhere the fierce satirists of English letters. Last of them all, and standing near where Darwin stood, is the great form of Thackeray. All his life he sought for perfection in human character and never found it. He searched England from the throne down for the gentleman and never found the gentleman. The life-long quest sometimes left him bitter, always left him sad. For all of Thackeray's work was done under the influence of the older point of view, that the frailties of men should[Pg 12] be scourged out of them and could be. Over his imagination brooded the shadow of a vast myth—that man had thrown away his own perfection, that he was a fallen angel, who wantonly refused to regain his own paradise.

And now from the peak of the world's thought on which Darwin stood, the other slope of English literature comes down to us and will pass on into the future. And as marking the beginning of the modern spirit working in literature, there on this side of Darwin, near to him as Thackeray stood near to him on the other side, is the great form of George Eliot. George Eliot saw the frailties of human nature as clearly as Thackeray saw them; she loved perfection as greatly as he loved perfection; but on her lips satire died and sympathy was born. She was the first of England's great imaginative writers to breathe in the spirit of modern life and of modern knowledge—that man himself is a developing animal—a creature crawling slowly out of utter darkness toward the light. You can satirize a fallen angel who willfully refuses to regain his paradise; but you cannot satirize an animal who is developing through millions of years his own will to be used against his own instincts.

And this new spirit of charity not only pervades the new literature of the world, but has made itself felt in every branch of human action.

It has affected the theatre and well-nigh driven the drama of satire from the stage. Every judge knows that it goes with him to the bench; every physician knows that it accompanies him into the sick-room; every teacher knows that he must reckon with it as he tries to govern and direct the young; every minister knows that it ascends with him into his pulpit and takes wing with his prayer.

And thus we come back around a great circle of the world's endeavor to the simple ceremony of this hour and place. There is but one thing to be said; it is all that need be said; it is an attempt to burnish one corner of a hero's dimmed shield.

It is autumn now, the season of scythe and sickle. Time, the Reaper, long ago reaped from the field of this man's life its heroic deed; and now after so many years it has come back to his grave and thrown down the natural increase. On the day when King Solomon was laid here the grass began to weave its seamless mantle[Pg 13] across his frailties; but out of his dust sprang what has since been growing—what no hostile hand can pluck away, nor any wind blow down—the red flower of a man's passionate service to his fellow-men when they were in direst need of him.

And so, long honor to his name! A new peace to his ashes!

THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE[3]

[From The Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia, December 5, 1908)]

The stars burn out one by one like candles in too long a night.

Children, you love the snow. You play in it, you hunt in it; it brings the tinkling of sleighbells, it gives white wings to the trees and new robes to the world. Whenever it falls in your country, sooner or later it vanishes: forever falling and rising, forming and falling and melting and rising again—on and on through the ages.

If you should start from your homes and travel northward, after a while you would find that everything is steadily changing: the air grows colder, living things begin to be left behind, those that remain begin to look white, the music of the earth begins to die out; you think no more of color and joy and song. On you journey, and always you are traveling toward the silent, the white, the dead. And at last you come to the land of sunlessness and silence—the reign of snow.

If you should start from your homes and travel southward, as you crossed land after land, in the same way you would begin to see that life was failing, colors fading, the earth's harmonies being replaced by the discords of Nature's lifeless forces, storming, crushing, grinding. And at last you would reach the threshold of another world that you dared not enter and that nothing alive ever faces—the home of the frost.

If you should rise straight into the air above your housetops, as though you were climbing the side of an unseen mountain, you would find at last that you had ascended to a height where the mountain would be capped with snow. All round the earth, wherever its mountains are high enough, their summits are capped[Pg 14] with the one same snow; for above us, everywhere, lies the upper land of eternal cold.

Some time in the future, we do not know when, but some time in the future, the Spirit of the Cold at the north will move southward; the Spirit of the Cold at the south will move northward; the Spirit of the Cold in the upper air will move downward to meet the other two. When the three meet there will be for the earth one whiteness and silence—rest.

A great time had passed—how great no one knew; there was none to measure it.

It was twilight and it was snowing. On a steep mountainside, near its bald summit, thousands of feet above the line that any other living thing had ever crossed, stood two glorious fir trees, strongest and last of their race. They had climbed out of the valley below to this lone height, and there had so rooted themselves in rock and soil that the sturdiest gale had never been able to dislodge them; and now the twain occupied that beetling rock as the final sentinels of mortal things.

They looked out toward the land on one side of the mountain; at the foot of it lay a valley, and there, in old human times, a village had thriven, church spires had risen, bridal candles had twinkled at twilight. On the opposite side they looked toward the ocean—once the rolling, blue ocean, singing its great song, but level now and white and still at last—its voice hushed with all other voices—the roar of its battleships ended long ago. One fir tree grew lower down than the other, its head barely reached up to its comrade's breast. They had long shared with each other the wordless wisdom of their race; and now, as a slow, bitter wind wandered across the delicate green harps of their leaves, they began to chant—harping like harpers of old who never tired of the past.

The fir below, as the snowflakes fell on its locks and sifted closely in about its throat, shook itself bravely and sang:

"Comrade, the end for us draws nigh; the snow is creeping up. To-night it will place its cap upon my head. I shall close my eyes and follow all things into their sleep."

"Yes," thrummed the fir above, "follow all things into their[Pg 15] sleep. If they were thus to sleep at last, why were they ever awakened? It is a mystery."

The whirling wind caught the words and bore them to the right and to the left over land and over sea:

"Mystery—mystery—mystery."

Twilight deepened. The snow scarcely fell; the clouds trailed through the trees so close and low that the flakes were formed amid the boughs and rested where they were created. At intervals out of the clouds and darkness the low musings went on:

"Where now is the Little Brother of the Trees—him of the long thoughts and the brief shadow?"

"He thought that he alone of earthly things was immortal."

"Our people, the Evergreens, were thrust forth on the earth a million ages before he appeared; and we are still here, a million ages since he left, leaving not a trace of himself behind."

"The most fragile moss was born before he was born; and the moss outlasted him."

"The frailest fern was not so perishable."

"Yet he believed he should have eternal youth."

"That his race would return to some Power who had sent it forth."

"That he was ever being borne onward to some far-off, divine event, where there was justice."

"Yes, where there was justice."

"Of old it was their custom to heap white flowers above their dead."

"Now white flowers cover them—the frozen white flowers of the sky."

It was night now about the mountaintop—deep night above it. At intervals the communing of the firs started up afresh:

"Had they known how alone in the universe they were, would they not have turned to each other for happiness?"

"Would not all have helped each?"

"Would not each have helped all?"

"Would they have so mingled their wars with their prayers?"

"Would they not have thrown away their weapons and thrown their arms around one another? It was all a mystery."

"Mystery—mystery."

[Pg 16]

Once in the night they sounded in unison:

"And all the gods of earth—its many gods in many lands with many faces—they sleep now in their ancient temples; on them has fallen at last their unending dusk."

"And the shepherds who avowed that they were appointed by the Creator of the universe to lead other men as their sheep—what difference is there now between the sheep and the shepherds?"

"The shepherds lie with the sheep in the same white pastures."

"Still, what think you became of all that men did?"

"Whither did Science go? How could it come to naught?"

"And that seven-branched golden candlestick of inner light that was his Art—was there no other sphere to which it could be transferred, lovely and eternal?"

"And what became of Love?"

"What became of the woman who asked for nothing in life but love and youth?"

"What became of the man who was true?"

"Think you that all of them are not gathered elsewhere—strangely changed, yet the same? Is some other quenchless star their safe habitation?"

"What do we know; what did he know on earth? It was a mystery."

"It was all a mystery."

If there had been a clock to measure the hour it must now have been near midnight. Suddenly the fir below harped most tenderly:

"The children! What became of the children? Where did the myriads of them march to? What was the end of the march of the earth's children?"

"Be still!" whispered the fir above. "At that moment I felt the soft fingers of a child searching my boughs. Was not this what in human times they called Christmas Eve?"

"Hearken!" whispered the fir below. "Down in the valley elfin horns are blowing and elfin drums are beating. Did you hear that—faint and far away? It was the bells of the reindeer! It passed: it was the wandering soul of Christmas."

[Pg 17]

Not long after this the fir below struck its green harp for the last time:

"Comrade, it is the end for me. Good-night!"

Silently the snow closed over it.

The other fir now stood alone. The snow crept higher and higher. It bravely shook itself loose. Late in the long night it communed once more, solitary:

"I, then, close the train of earthly things. And I was the emblem of immortality; let the highest be the last to perish! Power, that put forth all things for a purpose, you have fulfilled, without explaining it, that purpose. I follow all things into their sleep."

In the morning there was no trace of it.

The sun rose clear on the mountaintops, white and cold and at peace.

The earth was dead.

NANCY HUSTON BANKS

Mrs. Nancy Huston Banks, novelist, was born at Morganfield, Kentucky, about 1850. She is the daughter of the late Judge George Huston, who for many years was an attorney and banker of her native town. When a young woman Miss Huston was married to Mr. James N. Banks, now a lawyer of Henderson, Kentucky. Mrs. Banks's first book, Stairs of Sand (Chicago, 1890), has been forgotten by author and public alike, but shortly after its publication, she went to New York, and there she resided at the Hotel St. James for many years. At the present time she is living in London. She became a contributor to magazines, her critical paper on Mr. James Lane Allen and his novels, which appeared in The Bookman for June, 1895, being her first work to attract serious attention. A few years later Mrs. Banks dropped her[Pg 18] magazine work in order to write her charming novel of life in southern Kentucky, Oldfield (New York, 1902). This story was highly praised in this country and in England, the critics of London coining a descriptive phrase for it that has stuck—"the Kentucky Cranford." Her next novel, 'Round Anvil Rock (New York, 1903), was a worthy follower of Oldfield. One reviewer called it "a blend of an old-fashioned love story and an historical study." Mrs. Banks's most recent novel is The Little Hills (New York, 1905). The opening words of this story: "The air was the breath of spice pinks," was seized upon by the critics and set up as a sign-post for the book's tone. Mrs. Banks has been a great traveler. She was sent to South Africa during the Boer war by Vanity Fair of London, and her letters to that publication were most interesting. She knew Cecil Rhodes and George W. Steevens, the war correspondent, and, with her beauty and charm, she became a social "star" in the life about her. Mrs. Banks's one eccentricity—according to the literary gossips of New York—is her distaste for classical music; and that much of her success is due to the fact that she knows how to handle editors and publishers, we also learn from the same source. At least one of her contemporaries once held—though he has since wholly relented and regretted much—that, in a now exceedingly scarce first edition, she out-ingramed Ingram! But, of course, that is another story.

Bibliography. The Critic (September, 1902); The Nation (February 5, 1903); The Bookman (February, 1904).

ANVIL ROCK[4]

[From 'Round Anvil Rock (New York, 1903)]

The courage and calmness which he had found in himself under this test, heartened him and made him the more determined to[Pg 19] control his wandering fancy. Looking now neither to the right nor the left, he pressed on through the clearing toward the buffalo track in the border of the forest which would lead him into the Wilderness Road. Sternly setting his thoughts on the errand that was taking him to the salt-works, he began to think of the place in which they were situated, and to wonder why so bare, so brown, and so desolate a spot should have been called Green Lick. There was no greenness about it, and not the slightest sign that there ever had been any verdure, although it still lay in the very heart of an almost tropical forest. It must surely have been as it was now since time immemorial. Myriads of wild beasts coming and going through numberless centuries to drink the salt water, had trodden the earth around it as hard as iron, and had worn it down far below the surface of the surrounding country. The boy had seen it often, but always by daylight, and never alone, so that he noted many things now which he had not observed before. The huge bison must have gone over that well-beaten track one by one, to judge by its narrowness. He could see it dimly, running into the clearing like a black line beginning far off between the bordering trees; but as he looked, the darkness deepened, the mists thickened, and a look of unreality came over familiar objects. And then through the wavering gloom there suddenly towered a great dark mass topped by something which rose against the wild dimness like a colossal blacksmith's anvil. It might have been Vulcan's own forge, so strange and fabulous a thing it seemed! The boy's heart leaped with his pony's leap. His imagination spread its swift wings ere he could think; but in another instant he reminded himself. This was not an awful apparition, but a real thing, wondrous and unaccountable enough in its reality. It was Anvil Rock—a great, solitary rock rising abruptly from the rockless loam of a level country, and lifting its single peak, rudely shaped like a blacksmith's anvil, straight up toward the clouds.

THE OLD-FASHIONED FIDDLERS

[From the same]

Those old-time country fiddlers—all of them, black or white—how wonderful they were! They have always been the wonder[Pg 20] and the despair of all musicians who have played by rule and note. The very way that the country fiddler held his fiddle against his chest and never against his shoulder like the trained musician! The very way that the country fiddler grasped his bow, firmly and squarely in the middle, and never lightly at the end like a trained musician! The very way that he let go and went off and kept on—the amazing, inimitable spirit, the gayety, the rhythm, the swing! No trained musician ever heard the music of the country fiddler without wondering at its power, and longing in vain to know the secret of its charm. It would be worth a good deal to know where and how they learned the tunes that they played. Possibly these were handed down by ear from one to another; some perhaps may have never been pent up in notes, and others may have been given to the note reader under other names than those by which the country fiddlers knew them. This is said to have been the case with "Old Zip Coon," and the names of many of them would seem to prove that they belonged to the time and the country. But there is a delightful uncertainty about the origin and the history of almost all of them—about "Leather Breeches" and "Sugar in the Gourd" and "Wagoner" and "Cotton-eyed Joe," and so on through a long list.

WILLIAM B. SMITH

William Benjamin Smith, perhaps the greatest scholar ever born on Kentucky soil, first saw the light at Stanford, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. Kentucky (Transylvania) University conferred the degree of Master of Arts upon him in 1871; and the University of Göttengen granted him his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1879. Dr. Smith was professor of mathematics in Central College, Missouri, from 1881 to 1885, when he accepted the chair of physics in the University of Missouri. In 1888 he was transferred to the department of mathematics in[Pg 21] the same institution, which he held until 1893, when he resigned to accept a similar position at Tulane University. In 1906 Dr. Smith was elected head of the department of philosophy at Tulane, which position he holds at the present time. He was a delegate of the United States government to the first Pan-American Scientific Congress, held at Santiago, Chile, in 1908. Dr. Smith is the author of the following books, the very titles of which will show his amazing versatility: Co-ordinate Geometry (Boston, 1885); Clew to Trigonometry (1889); Introductory Modern Geometry (New York, 1893); Infinitesimal Analysis (New York, 1898); The Color Line (New York, 1905), a stirring discussion of the Negro problem from a rather new perspective; two theological works, written originally in German, Der Vorchristliche Jesus (Jena, Germany, 1906); and Ecce Deus (Jena, Germany, 1911), the English translation of which was issued at London and Chicago in 1912. These two works upon proto-Christianity have placed Dr. Smith among the foremost scholars of his day and generation in America. Besides his books he wrote two pamphlets of more than fifty pages each upon Tariff for Protection (Columbia, Missouri, 1888); and Tariff Reform (Columbia, Missouri, 1892). These show the author at his best. And his biography of James Sidney Rollins, founder of the University of Missouri, was published about this time. During the month of October, 1896, Dr. Smith published six articles in the Chicago Record, on the sliver question and in defense of the gold standard, which were certainly the most thorough brought out by the presidential campaign of that year. Among his many public addresses, essays, and articles, The Pauline Codices F and G may be mentioned, as well as his articles on Infinitesimal Calculus and New Testament Criticism in the Encyclopaedia Americana (New York, 1906); and he compiled the mathematical[Pg 22] definitions for the New International Dictionary (New York, 1908). Dr. Smith's fine poem, The Merman and the Seraph, was crowned in the Poet Lore competition of 1906. As a mathematician, philosopher, sociologist, New Testament critic, publicist, poet, and alleged prototype of David, hero of Mr. James Lane Allen's The Reign of Law—which he most certainly was not!—Dr. Smith stands supreme among the sons of Kentucky.

Bibliography. Current Literature (June, 1905); The Nation (November 23, 1911).

A SOUTHERN VIEW OF THE NEGRO PROBLEM[5]

[From The Color Line (New York, 1905)]

It is idle to talk of education and civilization and the like as corrective or compensative agencies. All are weak and beggarly as over against the almightiness of heredity, the omniprepotence of the transmitted germ-plasma. Let this be amerced of its ancient rights, let it be shorn in some measure of its exceeding weight of ancestral glory, let it be soiled in its millenial purity and integrity, and nothing shall ever restore it; neither wealth, nor culture, nor science, nor art, nor morality, nor religion—not even Christianity itself. Here and there these may redeem some happy spontaneous variation, some lucky freak of nature; but nothing more—they can never redeem the race. If this be not true, then history and biology are alike false; then Darwin and Spencer, Haeckel and Weismann, Mendel and Pearson, have lived and laboured in vain.

Equally futile is the reply, so often made by our opponents, that miscegenation has already progressed far in the Southland, as witness millions of Mulattoes. Certainly; but do not such objectors know in their hearts that their reply is no answer, but is utterly irrelevant? We admit and deplore the fact that unchastity has poured a broad stream of white blood into black veins; but we deny, and perhaps no one will affirm, that it has poured even the slenderest appreciable rill of Negro blood into[Pg 23] the veins of the Whites. We have no excuse whatever to make for these masculine incontinences; we abhor them as disgraceful and almost bestial. But, however degrading and even unnatural, they in nowise, not even in the slightest conceivable degree, defile the Southern Caucasian blood. That blood to-day is absolutely pure; and it is the inflexible resolution of the South to preserve that purity, no matter how dear the cost. We repeat, then, it is not a question of individual morality, nor even of self-respect. He who commerces with a negress debases himself and dishonours his body, the temple of the Spirit; but he does not impair, in anywise, the dignity or integrity of his race; he may sin against himself and others, and even against his God, but not against the germ-plasma of his kind.

Does some one reply that some Negroes are better than some Whites, physically, mentally, morally? We do not deny it; but this fact, again, is without pertinence. It may very well be that some dogs are superior to some men. It is absurd to suppose that only the elect of the Blacks would unite with only the non-elect of the Whites. Once started, the pamnixia would spread through all classes of society and contaminate possibly or actually all. Even a little leaven may leaven the whole lump.

Far more than this, however, even if only very superior Negroes formed unions with non-superior Whites, the case would not be altered; for it is a grievous error to suppose that the child is born of its proximate parents only; it is born of all its ancestry; it is the child of its race. The eternal past lays hand upon it and upon all its descendants. However weak the White, behind him stands Europe; however strong the Black, behind lies Africa.

Preposterous, indeed, is this doctrine that personal excellence is the true standard, and that only such Negroes as attain a certain grade of merit should or would be admitted to social equality. A favourite evasion! The Independent, The Nation, The Outlook, the whole North—all point admiringly to Mr. Washington, and exclaim: "But only see what a noble man he is—so much better than his would-be superiors!" So, too, a distinguished clergyman, when asked whether he would let his daughter marry a Negro, replied: "We wish our daughters to[Pg 24] marry Christian gentlemen." Let, then, the major premise be, "All Christian gentlemen are to be admitted to social equality;" and add, if you will, any desired degree of refinement or education or intellectual prowess as a condition. Does not every one see that any such test would be wholly impracticable and nugatory? If Mr. Washington be the social equal of Roosevelt and Eliot and Hadley, how many others will be the social equals of the next circle, and the next, and the next, in the long descent from the White House and Harvard to the miner and the ragpicker? And shall we trust the hot, unreasoning blood of youth to lay virtues and qualities so evenly in the balance and decide just when some "olive-coloured suitor" is enough a "Christian gentleman" to claim the hand of some simple-hearted milk-maid or some school-ma'am "past her bloom?" The notion is too ridiculous for refutation. If the best Negro in the land is the social equal of the best Caucasian, then it will be hard to prove that the lowest White is higher than the lowest Black; the principle of division is lost, and complete social equality is established. We seem to have read somewhere that, when the two ends of one straight segment coincide with the two ends of another, the segments coincide throughout their whole extent.

THE MERMAN AND THE SERAPH[6]

[From Poet-Lore (Boston, 1906)]

ANDERSON C. QUISENBERRY

Anderson Chenault Quisenberry, historical writer, was born near Winchester, Kentucky, October 26, 1850. He was educated at Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky. In 1870 Mr. Quisenberry engaged in Kentucky journalism, being editor of several papers at different periods, until 1889, when he went to Washington to accept a position in the War Department; but he has continued his contributions to the Kentucky press to the present time. His first volume was The Life and Times of Hon. Humphrey Marshall (Winchester, Kentucky, 1892). This was followed by his other works: Revolutionary Soldiers in Kentucky (1896); Genealogical Memoranda of the Quisenberry Family and Other Families (Washington, D. C., 1897); Memorials of the Quisenberry Family in Germany, England, and America (Washington, D. C., 1900); Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, 1850-51 (Louisville, Kentucky, 1906), one of the most attractive of the Filson Club publications; and History by Illustration: General Zachary Taylor and the Mexican War (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1911), the most recent volume in the Kentucky Historical Series of the State Historical Society. Mr. Quisenberry resides at Hyattsville, Maryland, going into Washington every day for his official duties.

Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Quisenberry to the present writer; Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

THE DEATH OF CRITTENDEN[7]

[From Lopez's Expeditions to Cuba, 1850-1851 (Louisville, Kentucky, 1906)]

The victims, bound securely, were brought out of the boat twelve at a time; of these, six were blindfolded and made to kneel down with their backs to the soldiers, who stood some three or[Pg 28] four paces from them. These six executed, the other six were put through the same ghastly ceremony; then twelve others were brought from the boat; and so on, until the terrible and sickening tragedy was over. As each lot were murdered their bodies were cast aside to make room for the next lot.

An eyewitness says of these martyrs to liberty: "They behaved with firmness, evincing no hesitation or trepidation whatever." Among those shot was a lad of fifteen who begged earnestly on his knees that some one be sent to him who could speak English, but not the slightest attention was paid to him. One handsome young man desired that his watch be sent to his sweetheart. After the first discharge those who were not instantly killed were beaten upon the head until life was extinct. One poor fellow received three balls in his neck, and, raising himself in the agonies of death, was struck by a soldier with the butt of a musket and his brains dashed out.

Colonel Crittenden, as the leader of the party, was shot first, and alone. One of the rabble pushed through the line of soldiers, and rushed up to Crittenden and pulled his beard. The gallant Kentuckian, with the utmost coolness, spit in the coward's face. He refused to kneel or to be blindfolded, saying in a clear, ringing voice: "A Kentuckian kneels to none except his God, and always dies facing his enemy!"—an expression that became famous. Looking into the muzzles of the muskets that were to slay him, standing heroically erect in the very face of death, with his own hands, which had been unbound at his request, he gave the signal for the fatal volley; and died, as he had lived, "Strong in Heart." Captain Ker also refused to kneel. They stood up, faced their enemies, were shot down, and their brains were beaten out with clubbed muskets.

[Pg 29]

ROBERT BURNS WILSON

Robert Burns Wilson, poet of distinction, the son of a Pennsylvania father and a Virginia mother, was born in his grandfather's house near Washington, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1850. When a very small child he was taken to his mother's home in Virginia; and there the mother died when her son was but ten years old, which event saddened his subsequent life. Mr. Wilson was educated in the schools of Wheeling, West Virginia, after which he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study art. When but nineteen he was painting portraits for a living. In 1871 he and John W. Alexander, now the famous New York artist, chartered a canoe and started down the Ohio river from Pittsburgh, hoping in due course to dock at Louisville, Kentucky. They had hardly reached the Kentucky shore, however, when they disagreed about something or other, and young Alexander left him in the night and returned to Pittsburgh. The next day Mr. Wilson ran his boat into a bank in Union county, Kentucky; he lived in that county a year, when he went up to Louisville. He gained more than a local reputation with a crayon portrait of Henry Watterson, and he was actually making considerable headway as an artist when he was discovered by the late Edward Hensley, of Frankfort, Kentucky, who persuaded him to remove to that town. Mr. Wilson settled at Frankfort in 1875, and he lived there for the following twenty-five years. His literary and artistic labors are inseparably interwoven with the history and traditions of that interesting old town, for he was its "great man" for many years, and its toast. As painter and poet he was heralded by the folk of Frankfort until the outside world was attracted and nibbled at his work. The first public recognition accorded his landscapes was at the Louisville and New Orleans Expositions of 1883 and 1884.

[Pg 30]

Mr. Wilson's first poem, A Wild Violet in November, was followed by the finest flower of his genius, When Evening Cometh On, which was originally printed in Harper's Magazine for October, 1885. This is the only Southern poem or, perhaps, American, that can be mentioned in the same breath with Gray's Elegy. Many of his poems and prose papers were published in Harper's, The Century, and other periodicals. His first book, Life and Love (New York, 1887), contained the best work he has ever done. The dedicatory lines to the memory of his mother were lovely; and there are many more poems to be found in the volume that are very fine. Chant of a Woodland Spirit (New York, 1894), a long poem of more than fifty pages, portions of which had originally appeared in Harper's and The Century, was dedicated to John Fox, Jr., with whom Mr. Wilson was friendly, and who spent a great deal of his time at the poet's home in Frankfort. His second and most recent collection of lyrics, The Shadows of the Trees (New York, 1898), was widely read and warmly received by all true lovers of genuine poesy. Mr. Wilson's striking poem, Remember the Maine, provoked by the tragedy in Havana harbor, was printed in The New York Herald; and another of his several poems inspired by that fiasco of a fight that is remembered, Such is the Death the Soldier Dies, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. The Kentucky poet's battle-hymns to the boys in blue were excelled by no other American singer, unless it was by the late William Vaughn Moody. Mr. Wilson's fourth and latest work, a novel, Until the Day Break (New York, 1900), is unreadable as a story, but the passages of nature prose are many and exquisite.

While he has always been a writing-man of very clear and definite gifts, Mr. Wilson has painted many portraits and landscapes, working with equal facility in oils, water-color,[Pg 31] and crayon. He is held in esteem by many competent critics as an artist of ability, but nearly all of his work in any of three mediums indicated, is exceedingly moody and pessimistic; and his water-colors, especially, are "muddy." It is greatly to be regretted that he did not remain the poet he was born to be, instead of drawing his dreams—many use a stronger word—in paints.

As has been said, Mr. Wilson was the presiding genius of the town of Frankfort during his life there; and he was a bachelor! Thereby hangs a tale with a meaning and a moral. For many years the widows and the other women past their bloom, burned incense at the shrine of the mighty man who could wrap himself in his great-coat, dash through a field and over a fence, punching plants with his never-absent stick, and return to town with a poem pounding in his pulses, and another landscape in his brain. Ah, he was a great fellow! But the tragedy of it all: after all these years of adoration from ladies overanxious to get him into their nets, they awoke one morning in 1901 to find that little Anne Hendrick, schoolgirl, and daughter of a former attorney-general of Kentucky, had married their heart's desire, that their dreams were day-dreams after all. The marriage took place in New York, after which they returned to Frankfort. The following year their child, Elizabeth, was born; and a short time afterwards he removed to New York, where he has lived ever since. Rumors of his art exhibitions have reached Kentucky; but the only tangible things have been prose papers and lyrics in the magazines.

A short time before his death, Paul Hamilton Hayne, the famous Southern poet, sent Wilson this greeting: "The old man whose head has grown gray in the service of the Muses, who is about to leave the lists of poetry forever, around whose path the sunset is giving place to twilight, with no hope before him but 'an anchorage among[Pg 32] the stars,' extends his hand to a younger brother of his art with an earnest Te moriturus saluto." These charming words were elicited by June Days, and When Evening Cometh On.

Bibliography. The Recent Movement in Southern Literature, by C. W. Coleman, Jr. (Harper's Magazine, May, 1887); Who's Who in America (1901-1902); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, v. xv, 1910), an excellent study by Mrs. Ida W. Harrison.

LOVINGLY TO ELIZABETH, MY MOTHER[8]

[From Life and Love. Poems (New York, 1887)]

Frankfort, Kentucky, October 6, 1887.

WHEN EVENING COMETH ON

[From the same]

DANIEL HENRY HOLMES

Daniel Henry Holmes is, with the possible exceptions of Theodore O'Hara and Madison Cawein, the foremost lyric poet Kentucky can rightfully claim, although he happened to be born at New York City, July 16, 1851; and that single fact is the only flaw in Kentucky's fee simple title to his fame. His father, Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, was a native of Indiana; his mother was an Englishwoman. Daniel Henry Holmes, Senior, settled at New Orleans when a young man as a merchant; but a year after the birth of Daniel Henry Junior—as the future poet always signed himself while his father lived—or in 1852, he purchased an old colonial house back of Covington, Kentucky, as a summer place for his family, and called it Holmesdale. So Daniel Henry Junior Holmes became a warm-weather Kentuckian when but one year old; and he spent the following nine summers at Holmesdale, returning each fall to New Orleans for the winter. When the Civil War began his father, whose sympathies were entirely Southern, removed his family to Europe, where eight years were spent in Tours and Paris. In 1869, at the age of eighteen years, Daniel Henry Junior, with his family, returned to the United States, and entered his father's business at New Orleans. His dislike for commercialism in any form became so great that his father wisely permitted him to return to Holmesdale, which was then in charge of an uncle, and to study law at Cincinnati. In the same year that he returned to Holmesdale (1869), the house was rebuilt; and it remains intact to-day. His family shortly afterwards joined him, and Holmesdale became the manor-place of his people for many years. Holmes was graduated in law in 1872, and he practiced in a desultory manner for some years. In 1883 he married Miss Rachel Gaff, of Cincinnati, daughter[Pg 37] of one of the old and wealthy families of that city. He and his bride spent the year of their marriage at Holmesdale, and, in 1884, went abroad.

Holmes's first and finest book of poems, written at Covington, was entitled Under a Fool's Cap: Songs (London, 1884), and contained one hundred and forty-four pages in an edition that did not exceed five hundred copies. The poet whimsically placed his boyhood name of "Daniel Henry Junior" upon the title-page. This little volume is one of the most unique things ever done by an American hand. Holmes took twenty-four old familiar nursery jingles, which are printed in black-face type at the top of the lyrics relating to them, and he worked them over and turned them over and did everything but parody them; and in only one of them—Margery Daw—did he discard the original metres. He employed "three methods of dealing with his nursery rhymes; he either made them the basis of a story, or he took them as an allegory and gave the 'modern instance,' or he simply continued and amplified. The last method is, perhaps, the most effective and successful of all," the poems done in this manner being far and away the finest in the book. Holmes spent the seven years subsequent to the appearance of Under a Fool's Cap, in France, Italy, and Germany. In 1890 his father gave him Holmesdale. He returned to Kentucky, and the remaining years of his life were spent at Covington, save several winters abroad.

Holmes's second book of lyrics, A Pedlar's Pack (New York, 1906), which was largely written at Holmesdale, contained many exceedingly clever and charming poems, but, with the exception of some fine sonnets, A Pedlar's Pack is verse, while Under a Fool's Cap is genuine poetry. Holmes was an accomplished musician, and his Hempen Homespun Songs (Cincinnati, 1906), mostly written in Dresden, contained fourteen songs set to music, of which[Pg 38] four had words by the poet. Of the other ten songs, three were by W. M. Thackeray, two by Alfred de Musset, and Austin Dobson, Henri Chenevers, W. E. Henley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson were represented by having one of their songs set to music. This was his only publication in the field of music, and his third and final book. Holmes's last years were spent at the old house in Covington, devoted to arranging his large library, collected from the bookshops of the world, and to his music. His life was one of endless ease, the universal pursuit of wealth being neither necessary nor engaging. He had lived parts of more than forty years of his life at Holmesdale when he left it for the last time in the fall of 1908 to spend the winter at Hot Springs, Virginia, where he died suddenly on December 14, 1908. He had hardly found his grave at Cincinnati before lovers of poetry on both sides of the Atlantic arose and demanded word of his life and works. This demand has been in part supplied by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, the Maine publisher, who has exquisitely reprinted Under a Fool's Cap, and written this beautiful tribute to the poet's memory:

"One vital point of interest should be restated: the man who took these old tags of nursery rhymes and fashioned out of them some of the tenderest lyrics ever written was an American by birth and in the doing of this unique thing did it perfectly. That he never repeated these first fine careless raptures is nothing to his discredit. That he did accomplish what he set himself to do with an originality and a proper regard to the quality of his work rather than its quantity is the essential fact; and in his ability to touch a vibrating chord in the hearts of all who have come across these lyrics we feel that the mission of Daniel Henry Holmes was fulfilled both in letter and in spirit."

Bibliography. The Hesperian Tree, edited by J. J. Piatt (Cincinnati, 1900); The Cornhill Magazine (August, 1909), review of Under a Fool's Cap, by Norman Roe; The Bibelot (May, 1910); Under a Fool's Cap (Portland, Maine, 1910; 1911),[Pg 39] lovely reprints of the 1884 edition, with Mr. Roe's review and foreword by Mr. Mosher; letters from Mrs. Holmes, the poet's widow, who has recently reopened Holmesdale.

BELL HORSES

[From Under a Fool's Cap (London, 1884)]

MY LADY'S GARDEN

[From the same]

LITTLE BLUE BETTY

[From the same]

THE OLD WOMAN UNDER THE HILL

[From the same]

MARGERY DAW

[From the same]

WILLIAM H. WOODS

William Hervey Woods, poet, was born near Greensburg, Kentucky, November 17, 1852, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at Hampden-Sidney College, in Virginia, after which he studied for the church at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Woods was ordained to the ministry of the Southern Presbyterian church in 1878; and since 1887 he has been pastor of the Franklin Square church at Baltimore. For the past several years he has contributed poems to Scribner's, Harper's, The Century, The Atlantic Monthly, The Youth's Companion, The Independent, and several other periodicals. This verse was collected and published in a pleasing little volume of some hundred and fifty pages under the title of The Anteroom and Other Poems (Baltimore,[Pg 48] 1911). As is true of the purely literary labors of most clergymen, a few of the poems are somewhat marred by the homiletical tone—they simply must point a moral, even though that moral does not adorn the tale. Several of the poems reveal the author's love for his birthplace, Kentucky; and, taken as a whole, the book is one of which any of our singers might be proud.

Bibliography. The Courier-Journal (January 16, 1912); Scribner's Magazine (July; August, 1912).

SYCAMORES[9]

[From The Anteroom and Other Poems (Baltimore, 1911)]

ANDREW W. KELLEY

Andrew W. Kelley ("Parmenas Mix"), poet preëminent of life on a country newspaper, was born in the state of New York about 1852. When twenty years of age he left Schenectady, New York, for Tennessee, but in 1873 he settled at Franklin, Kentucky, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was associate editor of Opie Read's paper, The Patriot, for some time, but when that sheet died, he drifted from pillar to post until a kindly death discovered him. The gossips of the quiet little town of Franklin will to-day tell the enquirer for facts regarding Kelley's life that he was engaged to a New York girl, all things were ready for the celebration of the ceremony, when the bride-to-be suddenly changed her mind, and poor Parmenas Mix was thus started in the drunkard's path. He planned to go East for several years prior to his death, to seek his literary fortunes, but he sat in his room and dreamed his life away. Kelley died at Franklin, Kentucky, in 1885. He was buried in the potter's field, a pauper and an outcast, which condition was wholly caused by excessive drinking. The very place of his grave can only be guessed at to-day. Kelley wrote many poems, nearly all of which celebrated some phase of life on a country newspaper, but his masterpiece is The Old Scissors' Soliloquy, which was originally published in Scribner's Monthly—now The Century Magazine—for April, 1876. It appeared in the "Bric-a-Brac Department," illustrated with a single tail-piece sketch[Pg 50] of editorial scissors "lying at rest" upon newspaper clippings, with "a whopping big rat in the paste." Many of his other poems were also published in Scribner's. The New Doctor, Accepted and Will Appeal, and He Came to Pay, done in the manner of Bret Harte's The Aged Stranger, are exceedingly clever. A slender collection of his poems could be easily made, and should be. Opie Read wrote a tender tribute to the memory of his former friend, in which his merits were thus summed up: "The country has surely produced greater poets than 'Parmenas Mix,' but I doubt if we shall ever know a truer lover of Nature's divine impulses. He lightened the heart and made it tender, surely a noble mission; he talked to the lowly, he flashed the diamond of his genius into many a dark recess. He preached the gospel of good will; he sang a beautiful song."

Bibliography. Blades o' Blue Grass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); Poetry of American Wit and Humor, by R. L. Paget (Boston, 1899).

THE OLD SCISSORS' SOLILOQUY

[From Scribner's Monthly, April, 1876]

LATE NEWS

[From Scribner's Monthly, December, 1876]

YOUNG E. ALLISON

Young Ewing Allison, one of the most versatile of the Kentucky writers of the present school, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, December 23, 1853. He left school at an early age to become the "devil" in a Henderson printing office. At seventeen years of age Mr. Allison was a newspaper reporter. At different times he has been connected with The Journal, of Evansville, Indiana; city and dramatic editor of The Courier-Journal; editor of The Louisville Commercial; and from 1902 to 1905 he was editor of The Louisville Herald. Mr. Allison founded The Insurance Field at Louisville, in 1887, and has since edited it. He has thus been a newspaper man for more than forty years; and though always very busy, he has found time to write fiction, verse, literary criticism, history, and librettos. In prose fiction Mr. Allison is best known by three stories: The Passing of Major Kilgore, which was published as a novelette in Lippincott's Magazine in 1888; The Longworth Mystery (Century Magazine, October, 1889); and Insurance at Piney Woods (Louisville, 1896). In half-whimsical literary criticism he has published two small volumes which are known in many parts of the world: The Delicious Vice (Cleveland, 1907, first series; Cleveland, 1909, second series). These papers are "pipe dreams and adventures of an habitual novel-reader among some great books and their people." Mr. Allison's libretto,[Pg 54] The Ogallallas, a romantic opera, was produced by the Bostonians Opera Company in 1894; and his Brother Francisco, a libretto of tragic opera, was presented at the Royal Opera House, Berlin, by order of Emperor William II. The music to both of these operas was composed by Mr. Henry Waller, Liszt's distinguished pupil. In history Mr. Allison has written The City of Louisville and a Glimpse of Kentucky (Louisville, 1887); and Fire Underwriting (Louisville, 1907). Of his lyrics, The Derelict, a completion of the four famous lines in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, has been printed by almost every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world, set to music by Mr. Waller, and an illustrated edition de luxe has recently appeared. The Derelict and The Delicious Vice have firmly fixed Mr. Allison's fame.

Bibliography. Confessions of a Tatler, by Elvira M. Slaughter (Louisville, 1905); letter from Mr. Allison to the writer.

ON BOARD THE DERELICT

A Reminiscence of Treasure Island

[From a leaflet edition]

HESTER HIGBEE GEPPERT

Mrs. Hester Higbee Geppert ("Dolly Higbee"), newspaper woman and novelist, was born near Edina, Missouri, March 12, 1854. She was the daughter of James Parker Higbee, a Kentuckian, and his second wife, Martha Lane (Galleher) Higbee, a woman of Virginian parentage. Both of Miss Higbee's parents died before she was fourteen years old, and she came to Lexington, Kentucky, to live in the family of Dr. Samuel H. Chew, who had married her half-sister. Dr. Chew's farm was situated some seven miles from Lexington, and there Miss Higbee lived for ten years. She was educated in Midway, Kentucky, and then taught for several years. She detested teaching and, "in January, 1878, while it was still quite dark, I stole down stairs with five dollars in my pocket and such luggage as I could carry in a handbag, tiptoed into the drizzle and 'lit out.'" The flip of a nickle determined that her new home should be Louisville, and to that city she went. Miss Higbee was the first woman in Kentucky, if not in the South, to adopt journalism as a profession. The following fourteen years of her life were spent in the daily grind of newspaperdom, she having held almost every position on The Courier-Journal, save that of editor-in-chief. In the four hottest weeks of the year, and in the brief intervals of leisure she could snatch from her daily duties, Miss Higbee wrote her now famous novel, In God's Country (New York, 1890). After the Lippincotts had refused this manuscript, Belford's Monthly Magazine accepted it by telegram, paying the author two hundred dollars for it, and publishing it in the issue for November, 1889; and in the following May the story appeared in book form. Colonel Henry Watterson wrote a review of In God's Country that was afterwards published as an introduction for it,[Pg 58] and this did much to bring the tale into wide notice. Miss Higbee went to Chicago in 1893 to accept a position on The Tribune. On April 4, 1894, she was married to Mr. William Geppert of Atlanta, and the first five years of their married life were spent at Atlanta. It was during this time that Mrs. Geppert's best story was written, Burton's Scoop, one of the first American stories written upon hypnotism and related phenomena. The opening chapters of this appeared in the author's little literary magazine, The Autocrat, which she conducted at Atlanta for about two years, but it has never been published in book form. Two musical romances, entitled The Scherzo in B-Flat Minor (Atlanta, 1895), and Un Ze Studio (Atlanta, 1895), attracted considerable attention, and a third was announced as Side Lights, but was never published. In God's Country was dramatized, with Miss Catherine Gray cast in the role of Lydia, and opened at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, September 5, 1897, but the work of the playwright and actors was most displeasing to the author. In 1900 Mr. Geppert became one of the editors of the New York Musical Courier, and he and his wife have since resided at Croton-on-the-Hudson. Mrs. Geppert has abandoned literature, but In God's Country has given her a permanent place among the writers of Kentucky.[10]

Bibliography. Confessions of a Tatler, by Elvira M. Slaughter (Louisville, 1905); Lexington Leader (July 25, 1909).

THE GARDENER AND THE GIRL[11]

[From In God's Country (New York, 1890)]

Her hair had come down and was tumbling about her neck; she whipped it out and caught it back with a hairpin, took up the[Pg 59] guitar, and skirted the shadowy porch to the room over the kitchen. The window was open and she could see Karl sitting in the middle of the room with his head bowed upon his hands. She tapped lightly on the pane. He looked up and saw her standing in the dim light with the guitar in her hand.

"Karl," she said, "I want you to sing me that song before you go—the one you sung me that day for your dinner."

He came forward and took the instrument. He saw she had been crying, but the experience of the summer had been so crushing, he was so subdued by her past behavior, that he did not dream the tears were for him.

"You are grieved for someding," he said, with touching sympathy.

He opened the door and gave her a chair, and, sitting near her on the sill of the window, began to sing the song with all the tenderness and pathos his own yearning and bitter disappointment could put into it. It brought back all the old tumult. She saw now, when it was too late, that she had overestimated her strength. When he finished, she was sobbing; and in an instant he was kneeling by her chair, raising to her a face sad, searching, but shining with the tremulous glow of a hope just born.

"You weep. Liebchen, is it for me?"

She did not answer, but laid a hand gently on his head and looked at him, with all the pent yearning of her full heart, all the agony of that long, weary struggle, and all the pathos of defeat in her eyes. It was no use. At that moment it seemed that there was nothing else in the world but him. Everything else was remote, dim, and unreal.

He clasped her with a fierce, exultant joy.

"You love me in spite of dis?" he asked, looking down at his coarse attire. "You love me in spite of dat I am your nigga?"

"In spite of all," she faltered.

It was out at last: the crest of victory sank in inglorious surrender. Her humiliation was his triumph.

He looked at her with a face radiant, shining with a beauty not of earth.

"Liebchen," he whispered, "it is divine."

"You vill gome mit me to mein gountry?" he asked presently.

[Pg 60]

She laid a finger on his lips. "Don't," she said; "I can't bear it."

"I vill not be a vagabond in mein own gountry; we vill be very happy. Gome mit me, Liebchen."

He would not be a vagabond in his own country. The information that would have been worth much to her once was worth nothing now. She scarcely heard it.

"I can't do that," she said. "You must go, and I must stay here and do as I have promised; but I wanted to tell you that I know I have been very cruel, and that I am very sorry. It was hard for me, too, and I could not trust myself to be kind."

It seemed but a moment she had been sitting there with his arms around her and his head upon her breast, but the east was red and the sun was almost up. Lydia rose wearily. The sense of defeat, that was more fatiguing than the struggle, clung to her. "It's time you were gone," she said. He took her hands in his and asked, with searching earnestness,

"If you love me, vy vill you not gome mit me?"

"I can't," she answered, too tired for explanation.

"Is it your fader?" he asked.

She nodded, and said good-bye, looking up at him with a tender glow on her face. The hair streaming about her shoulders had caught the flame of sunrise like a torch. He stooped and touched it with his lips as reverently as he would have kissed the garment of a saint.

HENRY C. WOOD

Henry Cleveland Wood, novelist and verse-maker, was born at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in January, 1855. His mother was a writer of local reputation. In 1874 Mr. Wood's poems and stories began to appear in English and American magazines; and he has continued his work for them until this day. Seven of his novels have been serialized by the following publications: Pretty Jack and[Pg 61] Ugly Carl (The Courier-Journal); Impress of Seal and Clay (New York Ledger, in collaboration with his uncle, Henry W. Cleveland, author of a biography of Alexander H. Stephens); The Kentucky Outlaw, and Love that Endured (New York Ledger); Faint Heart and Fair Lady (The Designer); The Night-Riders (Taylor-Trotwood Magazine); and Weed and War (The Home and Farm). Of these only one has been issued in book form, The Night Riders (Chicago, 1908). This was a tale of love and adventure, depicting the protest against the toll-gate system in Kentucky years ago, with a brief inclusion of the more recent tobacco troubles. Mr. Wood's verse has been printed in Harper's Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Ainslee's Magazine, The Smart Set, The Youth's Companion, and other periodicals. Two of his librettos, The Sultan's Gift and Amor, have been set to music; and at least one of his plays has been produced, entitled The Pretty Shakeress. Mr. Wood conducts a little bookshop in his native town of Harrodsburg.

Bibliography. Blades o' Blue Grass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); Illustrated Kentuckian (November, 1894).

THE WEAVER

[From The Quiver (London, England)]

WILLIAM E. CONNELLEY

William Elsey Connelley, historian and antiquarian, was born near Paintsville, Kentucky, March 15, 1855, the son of a soldier. At the age of seventeen he became a teacher in his native county of Johnson; and for the following ten years he continued in that work. John C. C. Mayo, the mountain millionaire, was one of his pupils. In April, 1881, Mr. Connelley went to Kansas; and two years later he was elected clerk of Wyandotte county, of which Kansas City, Kansas, is the county-seat. In 1888 he engaged in the lumber business in Missouri; and four years thereafter he surrendered that business in order[Pg 64] to devote himself to his banking interests, which have hitherto required a considerable portion of his time. In 1905 Mr. Connelley wrote the call for the first meeting of the oil men of Kansas, which resulted in the organization of an association that began a crusade upon the Standard Oil Company, and which subsequently resulted in the dissolution of that corporation by the Supreme Court of the United States. This is set down here because Mr. Connelley is, perhaps, prouder of it than of of any other thing he has done. He is well-known by students of Western history, but, of course, his fame as a writer has not reached the general reader. He is a member of many historical societies and associations, including the American, Nebraska, Missouri, Ohio, and Kansas, of which he was president in 1912. Mr. Connelley has made extensive investigations into the language and history of several of the Indian tribes of Kansas, his vocabulary of the Wyandot tongue being the first one ever written. He has many original documents pertaining to the history of eastern Kentucky; and the future historian of that section of the state cannot proceed far without consulting his collection. The novelist of the mountains, John Fox, Jr., has sat at the feet of the historian and learned of his people. Mr. Connelley lives at Topeka, Kansas. A complete list of his works is: The Provisional Government of Nebraska Territory (Topeka, 1899); James Henry Lane, the Grim Chieftain of Kansas (Topeka, 1899); Wyandot Folk-Lore (Topeka, 1899); Kansas Territorial Governors (Topeka, 1900); John Brown—the Story of the Last of the Puritans (Topeka, 1900); The Life of John J. Ingalls (Kansas City, Missouri, 1903); Fifty Years in Kansas (Topeka, 1907); The Heckewelder Narrative (Cleveland, Ohio, 1907), being the narrative of John G. E. Heckewelder (1743-1823), concerning the mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan[Pg 65] Indians from 1740 to the close of 1808, and the finest book ever issued by a Western publisher, originally selling for twenty dollars a copy, but now out of print and very scarce; Doniphan's Expedition (Topeka, 1907); The Ingalls of Kansas: a Character Study (Topeka, 1909); Quantrill and the Border Wars (Cedar Rapids, 1910), one of his best books; and Eastern Kentucky Papers (Cedar Rapids, 1910), "the founding of Harman's Station, with an account of the Indian Captivity of Mrs. Jennie Wiley." In 1911 Baker University conferred the honorary degree of A. M. upon him. For the last three years Mr. Connelley has been preparing a biography of Preston B. Plumb, United States Senator from Kansas for a generation, which will be published in 1913.

Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1912-1913); letters from Mr. Connelley to the writer.

KANSAS HISTORY

[From History as an Asset of the State (Topeka, Kansas, 1912)]

Kansas history is like that of no other State. The difference is fundamental—not a dissimilarity in historical annals. This fact has been long recognized. A quarter of a century ago Ware wrote that—

The south line of Kansas is the modified line between free soil and slave territory as those divisions existed down to the abolition of slavery. For almost half a century it was the policy of the Government to send here the remnants of the Indian tribes pushed west by our occupation of their country. The purpose in this was to make the Western prairies the Indian country of[Pg 66] America and thus prevent its settlement until the slave-power was ready to utilize it for its peculiar institution. Many things occurred which had not been counted on, and the country was forced open before the South was ready to undertake its settlement. While the crisis was premature, the slave-power entered upon the contest with confidence. It had never lost a battle in its conflict with the free-soil portion of the Union, and it expected to win in Kansas. The struggle was between the two antagonistic predominant ideas developed in our westward expansion, and ended in a war which involved the entire nation and threatened the existence of the Union. Politically, Kansas was the rock about which the troubled waters surged for ten years. The Republican party grew largely out of the conditions and influence of Kansas. When hostilities began the Kansans enlisted in the armies of the Union in greater proportion to total population than did the people of any other State. Here the war was extremely bitter, and in some instances it became an effort for extermination. Kansas towns were sacked, and non-combatants were ruthlessly butchered. The border embraced at that time all the settled portion of the State, and it would be difficult indeed to make the people of this day comprehend what occurred here. Kansas was founded in and by a bloody struggle, which, within her bounds, continued for ten years. No other State ever fought so well. Kansas was for freedom. She won, and the glory of it is that the victory gave liberty to America. That is why we maintain that Kansas history stands alone in interest and importance in American annals.

The history of a State is a faithful account of the events of its formation and development. If the account is set out in sufficient detail there will be preserved the fine delineations of the emotions which moved the people. These emotions arise out of the experiences of the people. And the pioneers fix the lines of their experiences. They lay the pattern and mark out the way the State is to go, and this way can never be altered, and can, moreover, be but slightly modified for all time. These emotions produce ideals which become universal and the common aim of the State, and they wield a wonderful influence on its progress, growth, and achievement. A people devoid of ideals can scarcely[Pg 67] be found, but ideals differ just as the experiences which produced the emotions from which they result differed. If there be no particular principle to be striven for in the founding of a State, then no ideals will appear, and such as exist among the people will be found to have come over the lines from other and older States. Or, if by chance any be developed they will be commonplace and ordinary, and will leave the people in lethargy and purposeless so far as the originality of the thought of the State is concerned. The ideals developed by a fierce struggle for great principles are lofty, sublime in their conception and intent. The higher the ideals, the greater the progress; the more eminent the achievement, the more marked the individuality, the stronger the characteristics of the people.

CHARLES T. DAZEY

Charles Turner Dazey, author of In Old Kentucky, was born at Lima, Illinois, August 13, 1855, the son and grandson of Kentuckians. When a lad the future dramatist was brought to Kentucky for a visit at the home of his grandparents in Bourbon county, whom he was to visit again before returning to Kentucky, in 1872, to enter the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky University, where he studied for a year. In the fall of 1873 young Dazey matriculated in the Arts College of the University. Ill-health caused him to miss the following year, but he returned in 1875 and remained a student in the University until the summer of 1877. He was a member of the old Periclean Society, the society of James Lane Allen and John Fox, Jr., while at the University. When he left Lexington he lacked two years of graduation. Mr. Dazey later went to Harvard University, where he was one of the editors of the Harvard Advocate, and the poet of his class of 1881. While a Senior at Cambridge he had[Pg 68] begun dramatic composition, and after leaving the University he became a full-fledged playwright. His plays include: An American King; That Girl from Texas—first called A Little Maverick—with Maggie Mitchell in the title-role; The War of Wealth; The Suburban; Home Folks; The Stranger, in which Wilton Lackaye played for two seasons; The Old Flute-Player; and Love Finds a Way. In collaboration with Oscar Weil Mr. Dazey wrote In Mexico, a comic opera, produced by The Bostonians; and with George Broadhurst he wrote two plays: An American Lord, with William H. Crane as the star; and The Captain, played by N. C. Goodwin.

The play by Mr. Dazey in which we are especially interested here, is, of course, In Old Kentucky, a drama in four acts, first written to order for Katie Putnam, a soubrette star, who was very popular a quarter of a century ago. She, however, did not consider the play suited to her, and it was then offered to several managers without success, until it was finally accepted by Jacob Litt. When first produced by Mr. Litt at St. Paul on August 4, 1892, it had a most distinguished cast: Julia Arthur, the beautiful, appeared as Barbara Holton; Louis James as Col. Doolittle; Frank Losee as Joe Lorey; and Marion Elmore made a most alluring Madge Brierly. This was only a trial production, and the play went into the store-house for a year, when, in August, 1893, it began its first annual tour at the Bijou Theatre (now the Lyceum), at Pittsburgh. In that first regular company Bettina Gerard played Madge; Burt Clark, Col. Doolittle; George Deyo, Joe Lorey; William McVey, Horace Holton; Harrison J. Wolfe, Frank Layson; Charles K. French, Uncle Neb; Edith Athelston, Barbara; and Lottie Winnett was Aunt Alathea. Mr. Litt and his associate, A. W. Dingwall, have always mounted In Old Kentucky handsomely, and this has been an important element in its great success.[Pg 69] For twenty years this drama of the bluegrass and the mountains has held the boards, more than seven million people have seen it, and even to-day it is being produced almost daily with no signs of loss in popular interest. It is the only play Mr. Dazey has written with a Kentucky background, and it would be "a hazard of new fortunes" for him to attempt to do so; he could hardly improve upon his masterpiece. In 1897 Mr. Litt had a small edition of In Old Kentucky privately printed from the prompt-books; and in 1910 Mr. Dazey collaborated with Edward Marshall in a novelization of the play, which was published as an attractive romance by the G. W. Dillingham Company, of New York. With Mr. Marshall he also novelized The Old Flute-Player (New York, 1910). Mr. Dazey has recently dramatized Fran, John Breckinridge Ellis's popular novel; and at the present time he is engaged upon a new play, which he thinks, promises better than anything he has so far written. Mr. Dazey was in Kentucky several times between 1877 and 1898, the date of his most recent visit, at which time he found John Fox, Jr., giving one of his inevitable readings in Lexington, and James Lane Allen looking for the last time, mayhap, upon the scenes of his books. He spent several weeks with friends and relatives near Paris; and, like all good Kentuckians, he "hopes to revisit the dear old state in the near future." Mr. Dazey has an attractive home at Quincy, Illinois.

Bibliography. Who's Who in the Theatre, by John Porter (Boston, 1912); letters from Mr. Dazey to the writer.

[Pg 70]

THE FAMOUS KNOT-HOLE[12]

[From In Old Kentucky (1897)]

Act III, Scene IV. The exterior of the race-track. Fence, tree, etc.

Colonel. (Enter L.) I didn't go in. I kept my word, though it nearly finished me. (Shouts heard.) They're bringing out the horses. (Looks through knot-hole.) I can't see worth a cent. It's not hole enough for me. To Hades with dignity! I'll inspect that tree. (Goes to tree; puts arm around it.)

[Enter Alathea, R.]

Alathea. (Pauses, R. C.) Everyone's at the races. I'm perfectly safe. There is that blessed knot-hole. (Goes to hole; looks through.)

Col. (Comes from behind tree; sees Alathea.) A woman, by all that's wonderful—a woman at my knot-hole. (Approaches.) Madam! (Lays hand on her shoulder.)

Alathea. (Indignantly.) Sir! (Turns.) Col. Sundusky Doolittle!

Col. Miss Alathea Layson! (Bus. bows.)

Alathea. Colonel, what are you all doing here?

Col. Madam, what are you all doing here?

Alathea. Colonel, I couldn't wait to hear the result.

Col. No more could I.

Alathea. But I didn't enter the race-track.

Col. I was equally firm.

Alathea. Neb. told me of the knot-hole.

Col. The rascal, he told me, too!

Alathea. Colonel, we must forgive each other. If you really must look, there is the knot-hole.

Col. No, Miss Lethe, I resign the knot-hole to you. I shall climb the tree.

Alathea. (As Colonel climbs tree.) Be careful, Colonel, don't break your neck, but get where you can see.

Col. (Up tree.) Ah, what a gallant sight! There's Catalpa, Evangeline—and there's Queen Bess! (Shouts heard.)

Alathea. What's that? (To tree.)

[Pg 71]

Col. A false start. They'll make it this time. (Shouts heard.) They're off—off! Oh, what a splendid start!

Alathea. Who's ahead? Who's ahead? (To tree.)

Col. Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back.

Alathea. Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front? Oh, if I were only on that mare. (Back to fence.)

Col. At the half, Evangeline takes the lead—Catalpa next—the rest bunched. Oh, great heavens!—(Lethe to tree.)—there's a foul—a jam—and Queen Bess is left behind ten lengths! She hasn't the ghost of a show! Look! (Lethe back to tree.) She's at it again. But she can't make it up. It's beyond anything mortal. And yet she's gaining—gaining!

Alathea. (Bus.) Keep it up—keep it up!

Col. At the three quarters; she's only five lengths behind the leader, and gaining still!

Alathea. (Bus.) Oh, push!—push!—I can't stand it! I've got to see! (Climbs tree.)

Col. Coming up, Miss Lethe! All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see. In the stretch. Her head's at Catalpa's crupper—now her saddle-bow, but she can't gain another inch! But look—look! she lifts her—and, Great Scott! she wins!

(As he speaks, flats forming fence are drawn. Horses dash past, Queen Bess in the lead. Drop at back shows grand stand, with fence in front of same. Spectators back of fence. Neb. and Frank. Band playing "Dixie." Holton standing near, chagrined. Col. waves hat and Alathea handkerchief, in tree. Spectators shout.)

(For second curtain, Madge returns on Queen Bess. Col. and Alathea down from tree and passing near. Other horses enter as curtain falls.)

[Curtain]

[Pg 72]

JOHN P. FRUIT

John Phelps Fruit, the distinguished Poe scholar, was born at Pembroke, Kentucky, November 22, 1855. He was graduated from Bethel College, Russellville, Kentucky, in 1878, after which he became a teacher. For two years Professor Fruit was president of Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky; and from 1883 to 1897 he was professor of English in his alma mater, Bethel College. In 1895 the University of Leipzig granted him the Ph. D. degree; and three years later he was elected to the chair of English in William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri, which he still occupies. Dr. Fruit's first work was an edition of Milton's Lycidas (Boston, 1894), and this was followed by his edition of Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner (Boston, 1899). Both of these little volumes have been used in many schools and colleges. Dr. Fruit devoted many years to the study of Edgar Allan Poe and his works, and his researches he brought together in The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry (New York, 1899). This book gave Dr. Fruit a foremost place among the Poe scholars of his time. His work was officially recognized by the University of Virginia, the poet's college, and it has been widely and cordially reviewed. At the present time Dr. Fruit is engaged in a comprehensive study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his pamphlet, entitled Hawthorne's Immitigable (Louisville, Kentucky, n. d.), having attracted a deal of attention.

Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1912-1913); letters from Prof. Fruit to the writer.

THE CLIMAX OF POE'S POETRY[13]

[From The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry (New York, 1899)]

Accustomed as we are, from infancy up, to so much "rhyme without reason," in our nursery jingles and melodies, we associate[Pg 73] some of Poe's poetry, remotely, at first blush, with the negroes singing "in the cotton and the corn." So much sound makes us suspicious of the sense, but a little closer ear appreciates delicate and telling onomatopoetic effects. Liquids and vowels join hands in sweetest fellowship to unite "the hidden soul of harmony."

As if, at last, to give the world assurance that he had been trifling with rhythm and rhyme, he wrote The Bells.

The secret of the charm resides in the humanizing of the tones of the bells. It is not personification, but the speaking in person to our souls. To appreciate this more full, observe how Ruskin humanizes the sky for us. "Sometimes gentle, sometimes capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two moments together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in us, is as distinct, as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to what is mortal is essential."

Poe made so much of music in his doctrine of poetry, yet he never humanized the notes of a musical instrument....

He took the common bells,—the more praise for his artistic judgment,—and rang them through all the diapason of human sentiment.

If we have imagined a closer correspondence between expression and conception, in the previously considered poems, than really exists, there can be no doubt on that point, even to the mind of the wayfaring man, in reading The Bells.

If it be thought that the poet could harp on only one theme, let the variety of topic in The Bells protest.

Again, Poe's doctrine of "rhythm and rhyme" finds its amplest verification in The Bells. Reason and not "ecstatic intuition," led him to conclude that English versification is exceedingly simple; that "one-tenth of it, possibly, may be called ethereal; nine-tenths, however, appertain to the mathematics; and the whole is included within the limits of the commonest common-sense."

It must be believed that Poe appropriated, with the finest artistic discernment, the vitalizing power of rhythm and rhyme, and nowhere with more skill than in The Bells. It is the climax of his art on its technical side.

[Pg 74]

Read the poem and think back over the course of the development of poet's art-instincts.

HARRISON ROBERTSON

Thomas Harrison Robertson, erstwhile poet and novelist, and now a well-known journalist, was born at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 16, 1856. He was educated at the University of Virginia, after which he settled at Louisville, Kentucky, as a newspaper man, verse-maker, and fictionist. Mr. Robertson has held almost every position on The Courier-Journal, being managing editor at the present time. He won his first fame with a Kentucky racing story, the best one ever written, entitled How the Derby Was Won, which was originally published in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1889. Ten years later his first long novel, If I Were a Man (New York, 1899), "the story of a New-Southerner," appeared, and it was followed by Red Blood and Blue (New York, 1900); The Inlander (New York, 1901); The Opponents (New York, 1902); and his most recent novel, The Pink Typhoon (New York, 1906), an automobile love story of slight merit. In the early eighties "T. H. Robertson" wrote some of the very cleverest verse, so-called society verse for the most part, that has ever been done by a Kentucky hand; but he soon abandoned "Thomas" and the Muse. The writer has always held that our literature lost a charming poet to win a feeble fictionist when Harrison Robertson changed literary steads, although his How the Derby Was Won must not be forgotten. Now, however, he has given up the literary life for the daily grind of a great newspaper; and he may never publish another poem or novel. More's the pity!

[Pg 75]

Bibliography. The Book Buyer (April, 1900; April, 1901); Scribner's Magazine (October, 1907); The Bookman (December, 1910).

TWO TRIOLETS[14]

[From A Vers de Socíeté Anthology, by Caroline Wells (New York, 1907)]

STORY OF THE GATE

[From the same]

INGRAM CROCKETT

Ingram Crockett, whom a group of critics have hailed as one of the most exquisite poets of Nature yet born in Kentucky, first saw the light at Henderson, Kentucky, February 10, 1856. His father, John W. Crockett, was a noted public speaker in his day and generation, and a member of the Confederate Congress from Kentucky. Ingram Crockett was educated in the schools of his native town, but he never went to college. For many years past Mr. Crockett has been cashier of the Planters State Bank, Henderson, but the jingle of the golden coins has not seared the spirit of song within his soul. In 1888 he began his literary career by editing, with the late Charles J. O'Malley, the Kentucky poet and critic, Ye Wassail Bowle, a pamphlet anthology of Kentucky poems and prose pieces. A small collection of Mr. Crockett's poems, entitled The Port of Pleasant Dreams (Henderson, 1892), was followed by a long poem, Rhoda, an Easter Idyl. The first large collection of his lyrics was Beneath Blue Skies and Gray (New York, 1898). This volume won the poet friends in all parts of the country, and proclaimed him a true interpreter of many-mooded Nature. A Year Book of Kentucky Woods and Fields (Buffalo, New York, 1901), a prose-poem, contains some excellent writing. A story of the Christiandelphians of western Kentucky, A Brother of Christ (New York, 1905), is Mr. Crockett's[Pg 78] only novel, and it was not overly successful. The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems (Chicago, 1908), is his most recent volume of verse. "It contains poems as big as the world," one enthusiastic critic exclaimed, but it has not brought the author the larger recognition that he so richly deserves. This work surely contains Mr. Crockett's best work so far. One does not have to travel far in any direction in Kentucky in order to find many persons declaring that Ingram Crockett is the finest poet living in the state to-day. His latest book, The Greeting and Goodbye of the Birds (New York, 1912), is a small volume of prose-pastels, somewhat after the manner of his Year Book. It again reveals the author's close companionship with Nature, and his exquisite expression of what it all means to him.

Bibliography. Blades o' Blue Grass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); The Courier-Journal (August 3, 1912).

AUDUBON[15]

[From Beneath Blue Skies and Gray (New York, 1898)]

THE LONGING[16]

[From The Magic of the Woods and Other Poems (Chicago, 1908)]

DEAREST

[From the same]

ELIZA CALVERT OBENCHAIN

Mrs. Eliza Calvert Obenchain, ("Eliza Calvert Hall"), creator of Aunt Jane of Kentucky, was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, February 11, 1856; and she has lived in that little city all her life. Miss Calvert was educated in the private schools of her town, and then spent a year at "The Western," a woman's college near Cincinnati, Ohio. Her first poems appeared in the old Scribner's, when John G. Holland was the editor; and her first prose papers were published in Kate Field's Washington. She was married to Professor William A. Obenchain, of Ogden College, Bowling Green, on July 8, 1885, and four children have been born to them. Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Boston, 1907), the memories of an old lady done into short stories, opens with one of the best tales ever written by an American woman, entitled Sally Ann's Experience. This charming prose idyl first appeared in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, for July, 1898, since which time it has been cordially commended by former President Roosevelt, has been reprinted in Cosmopolitan, The Ladies' Home Journal, and many other magazines, read by many public speakers, and finally issued as a single book in an illustrated edition de luxe (Boston, 1910). Many of the other stories in Aunt Jane of Kentucky are very fine, but Sally Ann is far and away superior to any of them. Mrs. Obenchain's The Land of Long Ago (Boston, 1909), was another collection of Aunt Jane stories. To Love and to Cherish (Boston, 1911), is the author's first and latest novel. Upon these four volumes Mrs. Obenchain's fame rests secure, but Sally Ann's Experience will be read and enjoyed when her other books have been forgotten. She struck a universal truth in this little tale, and the world will not willingly let it die. Her most recent work is a A Book of Hand-Woven Coverlets[Pg 82] (Boston, 1912), a large and delightful volume on coverlet collecting and the study of coverlet making.

Bibliography. Cosmopolitan Magazine (July, 1908); The Bookman (October, 1910).

"SWEET DAY OF REST"[17]

[From Aunt Jane of Kentucky (Boston, 1907)]

"I ricollect some fifty-odd years ago the town folks got to keepin' Sunday mighty strict. They hadn't had a preacher for a long time, and the church'd been takin' things easy, and finally they got a new preacher from down in Tennessee, and the first thing he did was to draw lines around 'em close and tight about keepin' Sunday. Some o' the members had been in the habit o' havin' their wood chopped on Sunday. Well, as soon as the new preacher come, he said that Sunday wood-choppin' had to cease amongst his church-members or he'd have 'em up before the session. I ricollect old Judge Morgan swore he'd have his wood chopped any day that suited him. And he had a load o' wood carried down cellar, and the nigger man chopped all day long in the cellar, and nobody ever would 'a' found it out, but pretty soon they got up a big revival that lasted three months and spread 'way out into the country, and bless your life, old Judge Morgan was one o' the first to be converted; and when he give in his experience, he told about the wood-choppin', and how he hoped to be forgiven for breakin' the Sabbath day.

"Well, of course us people out in the country wouldn't be outdone by the town folks, so Parson Page got up and preached on the Fourth Commandment and all about that pore man that was stoned to death for pickin' up a few sticks on the seventh day. And Sam Amos, he says after meetin' broke, says he, 'It's my opinion that that man was a industrious, enterprisin' feller that was probably pickin' up kindlin'-wood to make his wife a fire, and,' says he, 'if they wanted to stone anybody to death they better 'a' picked out some lazy, triflin' feller that didn't have energy enough to work Sunday or any other day.' Sam always would have his say, and nothin' pleased him better'n to talk back[Pg 83] to the preachers and git the better of 'em in a argument. I ricollect us women talked that sermon over at the Mite Society, and Maria Petty says: 'I don't know but what it's a wrong thing to say, but it looks to me like that Commandment wasn't intended for anybody but them Israelites. It was mighty easy for them to keep the Sabbath day holy, but,' says she, 'the Lord don't rain down manna in my yard. And,' says she, 'men can stop plowin' and plantin' on Sunday, but they don't stop eatin', and as long as men have to eat on Sunday, women'll have to work.'

"And Sally Ann, she spoke up, and says she, 'That's so; and these very preachers that talk so much about keepin' the Sabbath day holy, they'll walk down out of their pulpits and set down at some woman's table and eat fried chicken and hot biscuits and corn bread and five or six kinds o' vegetables, and never think about the work it took to git the dinner, to say nothin' o' the dish-washin' to come after.'

"There's one thing, child, that I never told to anybody but Abram; I reckon it was wicked, and I ought to be ashamed to own it, but"—here her voice fell to a confessional key—"I never did like Sunday till I begun to git old. And the way Sunday used to be kept, it looks to me like anybody could 'a' been expected to like it but old folks and lazy folks. You see, I never was one o' these folks that's born tired. I loved to work. I never had need of any more rest than I got every night when I slept, and I woke up every mornin' ready for the day's work. I hear folks prayin' for rest and wishing' for rest, but, honey, all my prayer was, 'Lord, give me work, and strength enough to do it.' And when a person looks at all the things there is to be done in this world, they won't feel like restin' when they ain't tired.

"Abram used to say he believed I tried to make work for myself Sunday and every other day; and I ricollect I used to be right glad when any o' the neighbors'd git sick on Sunday and send for me to help nurse 'em. Nursing the sick was a work o' necessity, and mercy, too. And then, child, the Lord don't ever rest. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day when He got through makin' the world, and I reckon that was rest enough for Him. For, jest look; everything goes on Sundays jest the[Pg 84] same as week-days. The grass grows, and the sun shines, and the wind blows and He does it all."

I said.

"That's it," said Aunt Jane, delightedly. "There ain't any religion in restin' unless you're tired, and work's jest as holy in his sight as rest."

Our faces were turned toward the western sky, where the sun was sinking behind the amethystine hills. The swallows were darting and twittering over our heads, a somber flock of blackbirds rose from a huge oak tree in the meadow across the road, and darkened the sky for a moment in their flight to the cedars that were their nightly resting place. Gradually the mist changed from amethyst to rose, and the poorest object shared in the transfiguration of the sunset hour.

Is it unmeaning chance that sets man's days, his dusty, common days, between the glories of the rising and the setting sun, and his life, his dusty, common life, between the two solemnities of birth and death? Bounded by the splendors of the morning and evening skies, what glory of thought and deed should each day hold! What celestial dreams and vitalizing sleep should fill our nights! For why should day be more magnificent than life?

As we watched in understanding silence, the enchantment slowly faded. The day of rest was over, a night of rest was at hand; and in the shadowy hour between the two hovered the benediction of that peace which "passeth all understanding."

[Pg 85]

KATE SLAUGHTER McKINNEY

Mrs. Kate Slaughter McKinney ("Katydid"), poet and novelist, was born at London, Kentucky, February 6, 1857. She was graduated from Daughters', now Beaumont, College, Harrodsburg, Kentucky, when John Augustus Williams was president. On May 7, 1878, Miss Slaughter was married at Richmond, Kentucky, to James I. McKinney, now superintendent of the Louisville and Nashville railroad. Mrs. McKinney's best work is to be found in her first book of verse, Katydid's Poems (Louisville, 1887). This slender volume was extravagantly praised by the late Charles J. O'Malley, but it did contain several lyrics of much merit, especially "The Little Face," a lovely bit of verse surely. Mrs. McKinney's first novel, The Silent Witness (New York, 1907), was followed by The Weed by the Wall (Boston, 1911). Both of these works prove that the author's gift is of the muses, and not of the gods of the "six best sellers." Neither of her novels was overly successful, making one wish she had held fast to her earlier love, verse-making. Besides these three volumes, Mrs. McKinney has published a group of songs which have attracted attention. She resides at Montgomery, Alabama.

Bibliography. Blades o' Bluegrass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

A LITTLE FACE[18]

[From Katydid's Poems (Louisville, Kentucky, 1887)]

CHARLES J. O'MALLEY

Charles J. O'Malley, the George D. Prentice of modern Kentucky literature, the praiser extraordinary and quite indiscriminately of all things literary done by Kentucky hands, and withal a poet of distinguished ability, was born near Morganfield, Kentucky, February 9, 1857. Through his father O'Malley was related to Father Abram J. Ryan, the poet-priest of the Confederacy;[Pg 87] and his mother was of Spanish descent. He was educated at Cecilian College, in Hardin county, Kentucky, and at Spring Hill, a Jesuit institution near Mobile, Alabama, from which he returned to Kentucky and made his home for some years at Henderson. His contributions in prose and verse to the newspapers of southwest Kentucky made him well-known in the State. A series of prose papers included Summer in Kentucky, By Marsh and Pool, and The Poets and Poetry of Southwest Kentucky, attracted much favorable comment. His finest poem, Enceladus, appeared in The Century Magazine for February, 1892, and much of his subsequent work was published in that periodical. In 1893 O'Malley removed to Mt. Vernon, Indiana, to become editor of The Advocate, a Roman Catholic periodical. His first and best known book, The Building of the Moon and Other Poems (Mt. Vernon, Indiana, 1894), brought together his finest work in verse. From this time until his death he was an editor of Roman Catholic publications and a contributor of poems to The Century, Cosmopolitan, and other high-class magazines. For several years O'Malley was editor of The Midland Review, of Louisville, and this was the best periodical he ever edited. Many of the now well-known writers of the South and West got their first things printed in The Review. It did a real service for Kentucky authors especially. During his later life O'Malley seemed to realize that he had devoted far too much time in praising the literary labors of other writers, and he turned most of his attention to creative work, which was making him better known with the appearance of each new poem. O'Malley may be ranked with John Boyle O'Reilly, the Boston editor and poet, and he loses nothing by comparison with him. He was ever a Roman Catholic poet, and his religion marred the beauty of much of his best work. Besides[Pg 88] The Building of the Moon, O'Malley published The Great White Shepherd of Christendom (Chicago, 1903), which was a large life of Pope Leo XIII; and Thistledrift (Chicago, 1909), a little book of poems and prose pastels. For several years prior to his passing, he planned a complete collection of his poems to be entitled Songs of Dawn, but he did not live to finish this work. At the time of his death, which occurred at Chicago, March 26, 1910, O'Malley was editor of The New World, a Catholic weekly. Today he lies buried near his Kentucky birthplace with no stone to mark the spot.

Bibliography. The Century Magazine (October, 1907); The New World (Chicago, April 2, 1910).

ENCELADUS[19]

[From The Building of the Moon and Other Poems (Mount Vernon, Indiana, 1894)]

NOON IN KENTUCKY

[From the same]

LANGDON SMITH

Langdon ("Denver") Smith, maker of a very clever and learned poem, was born in Kentucky, January 4, 1858. From 1864 to 1872 he attended the public schools of Louisville. As a boy Smith served in the Comanche and Apache Wars, and he was later a correspondent in the Sioux War. In 1894 Smith was married to Marie Antoinette Wright, whom he afterwards memorialized in his famous poem, and who survived him but five weeks. In the year following his marriage, he went to Cuba for The New York Herald to "cover" the conflict between Spain and Cuba; and three years later he represented the New York Journal during the Spanish-American War. Smith[Pg 92] was at the bombardment of Santiago and at the battles of El Caney and San Juan. After the war he returned to New York, in which city he died, April 8, 1908. He was the author of a novel, called On the Pan Handle, and of many short stories, but his poem, Evolution, made him famous. The first stanzas of this poem were written in 1895; and four years later he wrote several more stanzas. Then from time to time he added a line or more, until it was completed. Evolution first appeared in its entirety in the middle of a page of want advertisements in the New York Journal. It attracted immediate and wide notice, but copies of it were rather difficult to obtain until it was reprinted in The Scrap-Book for April, 1906, and in The Speaker for September, 1908.

Bibliography. Evolution, a Fantasy (Boston, 1909), is a beautiful and fitting setting for this famous poem. In the introduction to this edition Mr. Lewis Allen Browne brings together the facts of Langdon Smith's life and work with many fine words of criticism for the poem. In 1911 W. A. Wilde and Company, the Boston publishers, issued an exquisite edition of Evolution. Thus it will be seen that Smith and his masterpiece have received proper recognition from the publishers and the public; the judgment of posterity cannot be hurried; but that judgment can be anticipated, at least in part. That it will be favorable, characterizing Evolution as one of the cleverest, smartest things done by a nineteenth century American poet, the present writer does not for a moment doubt.

EVOLUTION[20]

[From Evolution, a Fantasy (Boston, 1909)]

WILL J. LAMPTON

William James Lampton ("Will J. Lampton"), founder of the "Yawp School of Poetry," was born in Lawrence county, Ohio, May 27, 185-, within sight of the Kentucky line. (Being a bachelor, like Henry Cleveland Wood, he has hitherto declined to herald the exact date of his birth.) His parents were Kentuckians and at the age of three[Pg 97] years he was brought to this State. His boyhood and youth was spent in the hills of Kentucky. He was fitted at private schools in Ashland and Catletsburg, Kentucky, for Ohio Wesleyan University, which he left for Marietta College. In 1877 Mr. Lampton established the Weekly Review—spelled either way!—at Ashland, Kentucky. Although he had had no prior training in journalism, he wrote eleven columns for his first issue. His was a Republican sheet, and the good Democrats of Boyd county saw to it that it survived not longer than a year. From Ashland Mr. Lampton went to Cincinnati and joined the staff of The Times. The Times was too rapid for him, however, and from Cincinnati he journeyed to Steubenville, Ohio, to take a position on The Herald. Mr. Lampton remained on that paper for three years, when he again came to Kentucky to join the staff of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Some time later his paper sent him to Cincinnati, which marked his retirement from Kentucky journalism. It will thus be seen that he "lapsed out of Kentucky for a time, and lapsed again at the close of 1882." Leaving Cincinnati he went to Washington and originated the now well-known department of "Shooting Stars" for The Evening Star. For some years past he has resided in New York, working as a "free-lance." For a long time he contributed a poem almost every day to The Sun, The World, or some other paper. In 1910 the governor of Kentucky created the poet a real Kentucky colonel; and this momentous elevation above earth's common mortals is heralded to-day upon his stationery. Colonel Lampton, then, has published six books, the editions of three of which are exhausted, and he is now happy to think that his works are "rare, exceedingly scarce." The first of them, Mrs. Brown's Opinions (New York, 1886), was followed by his chief volume hitherto, Yawps and Other Things (Philadelphia, 1900). The "other things" were poems,[Pg 98] not yawps. Colonel Henry Watterson contributed a clever introduction to the attractive volume; and another form of verse was born and clothed. The Confessions of a Husband (New York, 1903), was a slight offset to Mary Adams's The Confessions of a Wife. Colonel Lampton's other books are: The Trolley Car and the Lady (Boston, 1908), being "a trolley trip from Manhattan to Maine;" Jedge Waxem's Pocket-Book of Politics (New York, 1908), which was "owned by Jedge Wabash Q. Waxem, Member of Congress from Wayback," bound in the form of an actual pocket-book; and his latest collection of cleverness, Tame Animals I Have Known (New York, 1912). The tall—and bald!—Kentuckian lives at the French Y. M. C. A., New York, in order, as he himself has said, "to give a Parisian tinge to his religion." His "den" is a delight to Bohemians, a replica of many a country newspaper office in Kentucky. He is one of the joys of life surely. And though he has turned out almost as much as Miss Braddon, he can recall but the four lines he wrote in 1900 upon Mr. James Lane Allen:

Bibliography. The Bookman (September, 1900); The Bookman (May, 1902); Cosmopolitan Magazine (November, 1907); Lippincott's Magazine (August, 1911).

THESE DAYS[21]

[From Pearson's Magazine (April, 1907)]

OUR CASTLES IN THE AIR[22]

[From Pearson's Magazine (September, 1908)]

CHAMPAGNE

[From The Bohemian]

MARY ANDERSON DE NAVARRO

Mrs. Mary Anderson de Navarro, the celebrated actress of the long ago, and a writer of much ability, is a product of Kentucky, although she happened to be born at Sacramento, California, July 28, 1859. When but six months old she was brought to Louisville, Kentucky, and there her girlhood days were spent. Miss Anderson was educated at the Ursuline Convent and the Presentation Academy, two Roman Catholic institutions of Louisville. At the age of seventeen years, or, on November 27, 1876, she made her debut as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet," at Macauley's Theatre, Louisville, and her "hit" was most decided, both press and public agreeing that a brilliant career was before her. Miss Anderson's superb figure, her glorious hair, her magnificent voice, made her the great beauty she was, and thoroughly delightful. Leaving Louisville for a tour of the principal cities of the country, she finally arrived in New York, where she was seen in several Shakespearian roles. Some time later she put on "Pygmalion and Galatea," one of her greatest successes. In London Miss Anderson won the hearts of the Britishers with "The Lady of Lyons," "Pygmalion and Galatea," and other plays. Her second season on the stage saw a gorgeous production of "Romeo and Juliet" in London, with the American girl in her first role, Juliet.[Pg 102] This "held the boards" for an hundred nights. She returned to the United States, but she was soon back in London, where "The Winter's Tale," her next play, ran for nearly two hundred nights. Short engagements on the continent followed, after which she came again to this country, and to her old home, Louisville, which visit she has charmingly related in her autobiography, A Few Memories (London and New York, 1896), which work Joseph Jefferson once declared would make permanent her stage successes. From Louisville "Our Mary," as she was called by Kentuckians, was seen in Cincinnati, from which city she went to Washington, where she forever rang down the curtain upon her life as an actress. That was in the spring of 1889, and in June of that year she was married to Antonio F. de Navarro, since which event she has resided in England. In recent years Mary Anderson, that was, has visited in New York, but she has not journeyed out to Kentucky. In 1911 she collaborated in the dramatization of Robert Hichens's novel, The Garden of Allah, and she was in New York for its premier.

Bibliography. A Few Memories is delightfully set down, and, though the author made no especial claims as a writer, her book will keep her fame green for many years; McClure's Magazine (July, 1908); Harper's Weekly (January 9, 1909); Century Magazine (March, 1910).

LAZY LOUISVILLE[23]

[From A Few Memories (London, 1896)]

After visiting many of the principal States, I was delighted to find myself again in quaint, charming Louisville, Kentucky. Everything goes along so quietly and lazily there that no one seems to change or grow older. Having no rehearsals I used my first free time since I had left the city soon after my debut to see the places I liked best. Many of my childhood's haunts were[Pg 103] visited with our old nurse "Lou." At the Ursuline Convent, with its high walls, where music had first cast a veritable spell, and made a willing slave of me for life, most of the nuns looked much the same, though I had not seen them in nineteen years. The little window of the den where I had first resolved to go upon the stage, was as bright and shining as ever; and I wondered, in passing the old house, whether some other young and hopeful creature were dreaming and toiling there as I had done so many years before. At the Presentation Academy I found the latticed summer-house (where, as a child, I had reacted for my companions every play seen at the Saturday matinées, instead of eating my lunch) looking just as cool and inviting as it did then. My little desk, the dunce-stool, everything seemed to have a friendly greeting for me. Mother Eulalia was still the Superioress, and in looking into her kind face and finding so little change there, it seemed that the vortex I had lived in since those early years was but a restless dream, and that I must be a little child again under her gentle care. No one was changed but myself. I seemed to have lived a hundred years since leaving the old places and kindly faces, and to have suddenly come back again into their midst (unlike Rip Van Winkle) to find them as I had left them.

Many episodes, memorable to me, occurred in Louisville. Not the least pleasant was Father Boucher's acknowledgment (after disapproving of my profession for years) that my private life had not fallen under the evils which, at the beginning, he feared to be inevitable from contact with the theatre. Father Boucher was a dear old Frenchman, who had known and instructed me in matters religious since my childhood. My respect and affection for him had always been deep. When he condemned my resolution to go upon the stage quite as bitterly as did my venerated guardian, Pater Anton, my cup of unhappiness overflowed. All my early successes were clouded by the alienation of such unique friends. My satisfaction and delight may be imagined when, after years of estrangement, Father Boucher met me with the same trust with which he had honoured me as a child, and heartily gave me his blessing.

[Pg 104]

It was also at Louisville that the highly complimentary "resolutions" passed by the Senate of Kentucky, and unanimously adopted by that body, were presented to me. They were the State's crowning expression of goodwill to their grateful, though unworthy, country-woman.

MARY R. S. ANDREWS

Mrs. Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, short-story writer and novelist, was born at Mobile, Alabama, in 1860, but she was brought to Lexington, Kentucky, in September, 1861, when her father, Rev. Jacob S. Shipman, an Episcopal clergyman, was chosen rector of Christ Church. When six years old she was sent to Christ Church Seminary, the church's school, conducted by Rev. Silas Totten and his daughters. One of these daughters tells with a smile to-day that "May" Shipman's first story, written at the age of seven, was upon her dog, "Shep." When thirteen years of age she discovered that the older girls in the school were studying French, when she was not, and she went to her father with the request that she be permitted to join the class. But the rector's question, "May, would you put in your furniture before you built your walls?" sent her back to her Latin and mathematics without further protest. She attended the school for eleven years, and at it received her education, never having attended any other institution. On November 26, 1877, when the future writer was seventeen years of age, her father accepted the rectorship of Christ Church, New York, and the family shortly afterwards removed to that city. She has been in Kentucky but twice since: five years after her departure, and about ten years ago. But that she has not forgotten her Kentucky home is evinced in the signed copies of her books which have found their way to the Blue Grass country[Pg 105] and in her letters to former friends. On the last day of December, 1884, Miss Shipman married William Shankland Andrews, now associate justice of the supreme court of New York. Mrs. Andrews spends her summers in the Canadian woods, and the winters at her home in Syracuse, New York. Her first novel, Vive L'Empereur (New York, 1902), a story of the king of Rome, was followed by A Kidnapped Colony (New York, 1903), with Bermuda as the background. Bob and the Guides (New York, 1906), was the experiences of a boy, "Bob," with the French guides of the Canadian woods who pursue caribou. A Good Samaritan (New York, 1906), has been called the best story ever printed in McClure's Magazine, in which form it first appeared. The Perfect Tribute (New York, 1906), a quasi-true story of Lincoln and the lack of enthusiasm with which the crowd received his Gettysburg speech, adorned with a love episode at the end, is Mrs. Andrews's finest thing so far. This little tale has made her famous, and stamped her as one of the best American writers of the short-story. It was originally printed in Scribner's Magazine for July, 1906. Her other books are: The Militants (New York, 1907), a collection of stories, several of which are set in Kentucky, and all of them inscribed to her father in beautiful words; The Better Treasure (Indianapolis, 1908), is a charming Christmas story, with a moral attached; The Enchanted Forest and Other Stories (New York, 1909), a group of stories first told to her son and afterwards set down for other people's sons; The Lifted Bandage (New York, 1910), a most unpleasant, disagreeable tale as may well be imagined; The Courage of the Commonplace (New York, 1911), a yarn of Yale and her ways, one of the author's cleverest things; The Counsel Assigned (New York, 1912), another story of Lincoln, this time as the young lawyer, is not greatly inferior to The Perfect[Pg 106] Tribute. Mrs. Andrews's latest volume, The Marshal (Indianapolis, 1912), is her first really long novel. It is a story of France, somewhat in the manner of her first book Vive L'Empereur, but, of course, much finer than that work of her 'prentice years. It has been highly praised in some quarters, and rather severely criticized in others. At any rate it has not displaced The Perfect Tribute as her masterpiece. That little story, with A Good Samaritan, The Courage of the Commonplace, and Crowned with Glory and Honor, fairly entitle Mrs. Andrews to the first and highest place among Kentucky women writers of the short-story. She has attained a higher note in a most difficult art than any other woman Kentucky has produced; and it is only right and just that her proper position be allotted her in order that she may occupy it; which she will do with a consensus of opinion when her Kentucky life is more widely heralded.

Bibliography. American Magazine (May, 1909); Scribner's Magazine (September, 1911; August, 1912).

THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT[24]

[From The Courage of the Commonplace (New York, 1911)]

Three years later the boy graduated from the Boston "Tech." As his class poured from Huntington Hall, he saw his father waiting for him. He noted with pride, as he always did, the tall figure, topped with a wonderful head—a mane of gray hair, a face carved in iron, squared and cut down to the marrow of brains and force—a man to be seen in any crowd. With that, as his own met the keen eyes behind the spectacles, he was aware of a look which startled him. The boy had graduated at the very head of his class; that light in his father's eyes all at once made two years of work a small thing.

"I didn't know you were coming, sir. That's mighty nice of you," he said, as they walked down Boylston Street together,[Pg 107] and his father waited a moment and then spoke in his usual incisive tone.

"I wouldn't have liked to miss it, Johnny," he said. "I don't remember that anything in my life has ever made me as satisfied as you have to-day."

With a gasp of astonishment the young man looked at him, looked away, looked at the tops of the houses, and did not find a word anywhere. His father had never spoken to him so; never before, perhaps, had he said anything as intimate to any of his sons. They knew that the cold manner of the great engineer covered depths, but they never expected to see the depths uncovered. But here he was, talking of what he felt, of character, and honor, and effort.

"I've appreciated what you have been doing," the even voice went on. "I talk little about personal affairs. But I'm not uninterested; I watch. I was anxious about you. You were a more uncertain quantity than Ted and Harry. Your first three years at Yale were not satisfactory. I was afraid you lacked manliness. Then came—a disappointment. It was a blow to us—to family pride. I watched you more closely, and I saw before that year ended that you were taking your medicine rightly. I wanted to tell you of my contentment, but being slow of speech, I—couldn't. So"—the iron face broke for a second time into a whimsical grin—"so I offered you a motor. And you wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that you feared it would interfere with your studies. I was right?" Johnny nodded. "Yes. And your last year at college was—was all I could wish. I see now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up—and you got it. And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure. "I have had"—he hesitated—"I have had always a feeling of responsibility to your mother for you—more than for the others. You were so young when she died that you seem more her child. I was afraid I had not treated you right well—that it was my fault if you failed." The boy made a gesture—he could not very well speak. His father went on: "So when you refused the motor, when you went into engineers' camp that first summer, instead of going abroad, I was pleased. Your course here[Pg 108] has been a satisfaction, without a drawback—keener, certainly, because I am an engineer, and could appreciate, step by step, how well you were doing, how much you were giving up to do it, how much power you were gaining by that long sacrifice. I've respected you through these years of commonplace, and I've known how much more courage it meant in a pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would have meant in a serious person such as I am—such as Ted and Harry are, to an extent, also." The older man, proud and strong and reserved, turned on his son such a shining face as the boy had never seen. "That boyish failure isn't wiped out, Johnny, for I shall remember it as the corner-stone of your career, already built over with an honorable record. You've made good. I congratulate and I honor you."

The boy never knew how he got home. He knocked his shins badly on a quite visible railing, and it was out of the question to say a single word. But if he staggered, it was with an overload of happiness, and if he was speechless and blind, the stricken faculties were paralyzed with joy. His father walked beside him and they understood each other. He reeled up the streets contented.

That night there was a family dinner, and with the coffee his father turned and ordered fresh champagne opened.

"We must have a new explosion to drink to the new superintendent of the Oriel mine," he said. Johnny looked at him, surprised, and then at the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something which they knew and he did not.

"What's up?" asked Johnny. "Who's the superintendent of the Oriel mine? Why do we drink to him? What are you all grinning about, anyway?" The cork flew up to the ceiling, and the butler poured gold bubbles into the glasses, all but his own.

"Can't I drink to the beggar, too, whoever he is?" asked Johnny, and moved his glass and glanced up at Mullins. But his father was beaming at Mullins in a most unusual way, and Johnny got no wine. With that Ted, the oldest brother, pushed back his chair and stood and lifted his glass.

"We'll drink," he said, and bowed formally to Johnny, "to the gentleman who is covering us all with glory, to the new superintendent of the Oriel mine, Mr. John Archer McLean," and[Pg 109] they stood and drank the toast. Johnny, more or less dizzy, more or less scarlet, crammed his hands in his pockets and stared and turned redder, and brought out interrogations in the nervous English which is acquired at our great institutions of learning.

"Gosh! are you all gone dotty?" he asked. And "is this a merry jape?" And "Why, for cat's sake, can't you tell a fellow what's up your sleeve?" While the family sipped champagne and regarded him.

"Now, if I've squirmed for you enough, I wish you'd explain—father, tell me!" the boy begged.

And the tale was told by the family, in chorus, without politeness, interrupting freely. It seemed that the president of the big mine needed a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas, had written to the head of the Mining Department in the School of Technology, to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in the graduating class—a man to be relied on for character as much as brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at their head almost more than a scientist. Was there such a combination to be found, he asked, in a youngster of twenty-three or twenty-four, such as would be graduating at the "Tech?" If possible, he wanted a very young man—he wanted the enthusiasm, he wanted the athletic tendency, he wanted the plus-strength, he wanted the unmade reputation which would look for its making to hard work in the mine. The letter was produced and read to the shamefaced Johnny. "Gosh!" he remarked at intervals, and remarked practically nothing else. There was no need. They were so proud and so glad that it was almost too much for the boy who had been a failure three years ago.

On the urgent insistence of every one, he made a speech. He got to his six-feet-two slowly, and his hand went into his trousers as usual. "Holy mackerel," he began—"I don't call it decent to knock the wind out of a man and then hold him up for remarks. They all said in college that I talked the darnedest hash in the class, anyway. But you will have it, will you? I haven't got anything to say, so's you'd notice it, except that I'll be blamed if I see how this is true. Of course I'm keen for it—Keen! I should say I was! And what makes me keenest, I believe,[Pg 110] is that I know it's satisfactory to Henry McLean." He turned his bright face to his father. "Any little plugging I've done seems like thirty cents compared to that. You're all peaches to take such an interest, and I thank you a lot. Me, the superintendent of the Oriel mine! Holy mackerel!" gasped Johnny, and sat down.

ELVIRA MILLER SLAUGHTER

Mrs. Elvira (Sydnor) Miller Slaughter, the "Tatler" of The Louisville Times in the old days, and a verse-writer of considerable reputation, was born at Wytheville, Virginia, October 12, 1860. When a child Miss Miller was brought to Kentucky, as her mother had inherited money which made necessary her removal to this State in order to obtain it. She was educated at the Presentation Academy, in Louisville, by the same nuns that had instructed Mary Anderson de Navarro, the famous actress. She was subsequently gold medalist at a private finishing school, but she still clings to the Catholicism instilled at the Presentation Academy. Shortly after having left school Miss Miller published her first and only book of poems, Songs of the Heart (Louisville, 1885), with a prologue by Douglass Sherley.[25] About this time her parents lost their fortune, and she secured a position on The Louisville Times, where she was trained by Mr. Robert W. Brown, the present managing editor of[Pg 111] that paper. After three years of general reporting, Miss Miller became editor of "The Tatler Column," and this she conducted for fourteen years with cleverness and success, only resigning on the day of her marriage to Mr. W. H. Slaughter, Jr. Her second book, The Tiger's Daughter and Other Stories (Louisville, 1889), is a group of fairy tales, several of which are entertaining. The Confessions of a Tatler (Louisville, 1905), is a booklet of the best things she did for her department on The Times. She surely handled some men, women, books, and things in this brochure in a manner that even he who runs may read and—understand! From 1909 to 1912 she lived at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, Ohio, but at the present time she is again at Louisville, engaged in literary work.

Bibliography. Blades o' Bluegrass, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); Dear Old Kentucky, by G. M. Spears (Cincinnati, 1900).

THE SOUTH AND SONG

[From The Midland Review (Louisville, Kentucky)]

SUNDOWN LANE

[From The Louisville Times]

JOSEPH S. COTTER

Joseph Seaman Cotter, Kentucky's only negro writer of real creative ability, was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, February 2, 1861. From his hard day-labor, he went to night school in Louisville, and he has educated himself so successfully that he is at the present time principal of the Tenth Ward colored school, Louisville. Cotter has published three volumes of verse, the first of which was Links of Friendship (Louisville, 1898), a book of short lyrics. This was followed by a four-act verse drama, entitled Caleb, the Degenerate (Louisville, 1903). His latest book of verse is A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, 1909). Cotter's response to Paul Lawrence Dunbar's After a Visit to Kentucky, was exceedingly well done, but his Negro Love Song is the cleverest thing he has written hitherto. His work has been praised by Alfred Austin, Israel Zangwill, Madison Cawein, Charles J. O'Malley, and other excellent judges of poetry. Cotter is a great credit to his race, and he has won, by his quiet, unassuming life and literary labors, the respect of many of Louisville's most prominent citizens. One of his admirers has ranked his work above Dunbar's, but this rating is much too high for any thing he has done so far. In the last year or two he has turned his attention to the short-story, and his first collection of them has just appeared, entitled Negro Tales (New York, 1912).

Bibliography. Lexington Leader (November 14, 1909); Lore of the Meadowland, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).

NEGRO LOVE SONG[26]

[From A White Song and a Black One (Louisville, Kentucky, 1909)]

ETHELBERT D. WARFIELD

Ethelbert Dudley Warfield, historical writer, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, March 16, 1861, the brother of Dr. Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, the distinguished professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. President Warfield was graduated from Princeton, continued his studies at the University of Oxford, and was graduated in law from Columbia University, in 1885. He practiced law at Lexington, Kentucky, for two years, when he abandoned the profession for the presidency of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. In 1891 he left Miami for the presidency of LaFayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, where[Pg 117] he has remained ever since. In 1899 Dr. Warfield was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry. He teaches history at LaFayette. Besides several interesting pamphlets upon historical subjects, Dr. Warfield has published three books, the first of which was The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: an Historical Study (New York, 1887), his most important work so far. At the Evening Hour (Philadelphia, 1898), is a little book of talks upon religious subjects; and his most recent volume, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Junior (New York, 1898), is the pathetic tale of the years of an early hero of the Spanish-American war, graphically related.

Bibliography. Munsey's Magazine (August, 1901); The Independent (December 25, 1902); The Independent (July 13, 1905).

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

[From The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (April, 1892)]

Columbus is one of the few men who have profoundly changed the course of history. He occupies a unique and commanding position, seeming to stand out of contemporary history, and to be a force separate and apart. He is the gateway to the New World. His career made a new civilization possible. His achievement conditions the expansion and development of human liberty. His position is simple but certain. His figure is as constant and as inexorable as the ice floes which girdle and guard the pole are to us, or as the sea of darkness which he spanned was to his predecessors. He inserted a known quantity into the hitherto unsolvable problem of geography, and not only rendered it solvable, but afforded a key to a vast number of problems dependent upon it, problems not merely geographical, but economical, sociological and governmental as well.

Yet in all this there mingles an element of error. Great events do not come unanticipated and unheralded.

sang Luther, knowing well that God hath foreordained from the[Pg 118] foundation of the world whatsoever cometh to pass. "In the fullness of time" God does all things in His benign philosophy. In the fullness of time man was set in the midst of his creation; in the fullness of time Christ came; in the fullness of time God opened the portals of the west.

If the Welsh were driven on our shores under Madoc, if the Norsemen came and sought to found here "Vinland, the good," they did not light upon the fullness of time. God had no splendid purpose for the Welsh; the Northland force was needed to make bold the hearts of England, France, and Italy, to unify the world with fellow-service in the Orient, to break the bonds of feudalism, and to wing the sandals of liberty. As Isaac Newton sat watching the apple fall in his garden, he was but resting from the labor of gathering into his mind the labors of men who had in this or that anticipated his discovery of the law of gravitation. In all scientific advance many gather facts. One comes at length and in a far-reaching synthesis arranges the facts of many predecessors around some central truth and rises to some great principle. So generalizations follow generalizations, and the field of truth expands in ever-widening circles from the central fact of God's establishment. Columbus is not like Melchisedec. He had antecedents—antecedents many and obvious. The highest tribute we can pay him is to say that he fixed upon one of the world's great problems, studied it in all its relations, embraced clear and definite views upon it, and staked his all upon the issue; and that not in a spirit of mere adventure, but of dedication to a noble purpose. He gave to a speculative question reality, and thereby gave a hemisphere to Christendom.

But like the girl who admitted the Gauls to the Capitol at Rome in return for "what they wore on their left arms," Columbus was overwhelmed by the reward which he demanded for his services. Without natural ability to command, and without experience, he demanded and obtained a fatal authority.

[Pg 119]

EVELYN S. BARNETT

Mrs. Evelyn Snead Barnett, a novelist of strength and promise, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, June 9, 1861, the daughter of Charles Scott Snead. On June 8, 1886, Miss Snead became the wife of Mr. Ira Sayre Barnett, a Louisville business man. Mrs. Barnett was literary editor of The Courier-Journal for seven years, and her Saturday page upon "Books and Their Writers" was carefully edited. She did a real service for Kentucky letters in that she never omitted comment and criticism upon the latest books of our authors, with an occasional word upon the writers of the long ago. She was succeeded by the present editor, Miss Anna Blanche Magill. Mrs. Barnett's first story, entitled Mrs. Delire's Euchre Party and Other Tales (Franklin, Ohio, 1895), the "other tales" being three in number, was followed by Jerry's Reward (Boston, 1902). These novelettes made clear the path for the author's big novel, The Dragnet (New York, 1909), now in its second edition. This is a great mystery story, one reviewer ranking it with the best detective tales of the present-day school. The American trusts and the hearts of women furnish the setting for The Dragnet, which is bigger in promise than in achievement, and which bespeaks even greater merit for Mrs. Barnett's new novel, now in preparation.

Bibliography. Kentuckians in History and Literature, by J. W. Townsend (New York, 1907); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

THE WILL[27]

[From The Dragnet (New York, 1909)]

Soon after their return, the Alexanders were forced to move to town. Charles needed the time he had to spend on the road[Pg 120] going to and fro, and he was unwilling to put unnecessary hours of work on Trezevant, who not only bore his share during the day, but was sleeping with one eye open in a dingy corner of the shops. As the Dinsmore was expensive, they rented a modern flat, with tiny rooms, but plenty of sunlight. Constance knew they could save here, especially as Diana still wished to make her home with them.

Finally, the last day at Hillside came.

Charles drove Diana and Lawson to town, to get things ready there, leaving Constance to see the last load off, and to make sure that everything was in good shape for the Clarks, who intended to take possession in the spring. Constance went into every room, list in hand, checking the things the new owners had purchased. Then she tried the window bolts, and snapped the key in the lock of the front door. She blew the horn for the brougham. The coachman came up. In a business-like, everyday manner, she ordered him to drive to town, and, getting in, without one look from the window, she left Hillside.

When she arrived at the new home, she was pleased to find that Diana and Lawson had arranged the furniture in the small rooms, and had a dainty little luncheon awaiting. As she was sitting down to enjoy it, her first visitor rang the bell—Aunt Sarah, just returned from the East and the latest fashions, looking younger than ever, and with a torrent of society gossip that was almost Sanscrit to Constance, occupied so long with the realities.

"What was your idea, Constance, in coming to this tiny place?" she asked, when she had given a full account of the delights of her summer.

Constance hesitated, but only for a moment. "Economy," she said, boldly.

Aunt Sarah looked anxious. "My dear child, has your husband been preaching? Don't let him fool you; they all try it. It's a trick. Every now and then they think it their duty to cry hard times, when it is no such thing. You go to scrimping and saving, like an obedient wife, and the first thing you know he buys an automobile or a yacht, or wants you to give a ball."

Constance smiled. "But this is real, Aunt Sarah. You know[Pg 121] we are fighting a big trust, and while, eventually, we expect to win, we have to be content with little or no profits for a few years."

"Trusts! Profits! What difference do they make as long as you have a steady income of your own?"

Constance was debating with herself whether she ought to speak plainly and have it out with the Parker pride then and there, or wait until she were not quite so tired and unstrung, when she was happily spared a decision by her aunt's switching off to another track.

"Talking of money reminds me that I heard a piece of news to-day," she said, lowering her voice in deference to Diana's presence behind thin walls. "I heard that Horace Vendire made a will shortly after his engagement to —— and has left her millions."

"Oh, aunt! I wonder if it is true! How dreadful it would be!"

Aunt Sarah put up her jeweled lorgnette. "Constance Parker, what on earth is the matter with you to-day? You seem to be getting everything distorted, looking at the world upside down. It's that country business—" she continued emphatically; "the very moment you developed a fondness for that sort of life, I knew you were bound to grow careless and indifferent in thoughts, ways, and opinions. People who love the country always seem to think they have to sneer at civilization."

Constance was too tired to argue, and too disturbed over the last piece of gossip to explain; so she said weakly that she supposed she had changed, and let the rest of the visit pass in banalities.

The next day a little lawyer sprang a sensation by notifying those whom it concerned that he held the last Will and Testament of Horace Vendire, duly signed, attested, and sealed in his presence, a month before the disappearance.

Charles came to tell the two women.

"No, no!" cried Diana: "It's a mistake! He did not intend it to stand!"

"You surmise the contents of the will?"

"If it was made only a month before he disappeared. Had he[Pg 122] lived, he would have altered it. I begged him to. Must I go to the meeting of the heirs?"

"I think it is best. Cheer up; there are many things worse than money. Constance and I will go with you. Mr. James is back, and has asked us."

So Diana went, and she could not have looked more terrified had she been listening to the last trump, instead of to the smooth voice of a young lawyer reading the bequests of her dead lover.

The will was dated, July 26th, 1900. By it, Horace Vendire's life insurance was left to his brother James, an annuity of five thousand dollars to his mother, and an income of only three thousand a year to his fiancée, Diana Frewe, as long as she remained unmarried. It was evident to Charles that Vendire did not wish to give her enough to help her friends. The residue, and, eventually, the principal, were to be used in building and endowing the Horace Vendire Public Library in the city of New York.

In a codicil, he directed that his stock in the American Blade and Trigger Company should be sold, the directors of that company being given the option of buying it at par before it was offered elsewhere.

Mr. James Vendire was the first to congratulate Diana.

"Oh, don't!" she cried, shrinking from his proffered hand. "I cannot bear it. It is yours; you must take it." She grew almost incoherent.

Constance petted and soothed. "Be still, dear. Remember you are weak and unstrung. We will go home now, and see what can be done later."

[Pg 123]

JOHN PATTERSON

John Patterson, "a Greek prophet not without honor in his own American land," was born near Lexington, Kentucky, June 10, 1861. He was graduated from Kentucky State University in 1882; and the following year Harvard granted him the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He took his Master's degree from Kentucky University in 1886. The late Professor John Henry Neville, one of Kentucky's greatest classical scholars, first taught John Patterson Greek; and to his old professor he is indebted for much of his success as a teacher of Greek and a translator and critic of its literature. Professor Patterson's first school after leaving Harvard was a private one for boys near Midway, Kentucky; and he was for several years principal of the high school at Versailles, Kentucky. His first book, Lyric Touches (Cincinnati, 1893), is his only really creative work so far. It contains several fine poems and was widely admired at the time of its appearance. In 1894 Professor Patterson was made instructor of Greek in the Louisville High School, which position he held for seven years. His first published translation was The Medea of Euripides (Louisville, 1894), which he edited with an introduction and notes. This was followed by The Cyclops of Euripides (London, 1900), perhaps his finest work hitherto. In 1901 Kentucky University conferred the honorary degree of Master of Literature upon Professor Patterson; and in the same year he helped to establish the Patterson-Davenport school of Louisville. In 1907 he became professor of Greek in the University of Louisville; and since September, 1908, he has been Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University with full executive powers, practically president. His institution granted him the honorary degree of LL. D. in 1909. Doctor Patterson's latest work is a translation into English of[Pg 124] Bion's Lament for Adonis (Louisville, 1909). At the present time he is engaged upon a critical edition of the Greek text of the Lament.

Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909), v. ix; Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

A CLUSTER OF GRAPES[28]

[From. Lyric Touches (Cincinnati, 1893)]

CHORAL ODE (Eripides' Medea, Lines 627-662.)

[From the same]

WILLIAM E. BARTON

William Eleazar Barton, novelist and theologian, was born at Sublette, Illinois, June 28, 1861. He reached Kentucky for the first time on Christmas Day of 1880, and matriculated as a student in Berea College, where he spent the remainder of the college year of 1880-1881, and four additional years. During two summers and autumns he taught school in Knox county, Kentucky, then without a railroad, taking long rides to Cumberland Gap, Cumberland Falls and other places which have since appeared in his stories. The two remaining vacations he spent in travel through the mountains, journeying by Ohio river steamer along the northern counties, and by horseback far into the Kentucky hills in various directions. In 1885 Mr. Barton graduated from Berea with the B. S. degree; and three years later the same institution granted him M. S., and, in 1890, A. M. He was ordained to the Congregational ministry at Berea, Kentucky, June 6, 1885, and he preached for two years in southern Kentucky and in the adjacent hills of east Tennessee, living at Robbins, Tennessee. Mr. Barton's first book was a Kentucky mountain sketch, called The Wind-Up of the Big Meetin' on No Bus'ness (1887), now out of print. This was followed by Life in the Hills of Kentucky (1889), depicting actual conditions. He became pastor of a church at Wellington, Ohio, in 1890, and his next two works were church histories. Berea College conferred the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity upon Mr. Barton in 1895; and he has been a trustee of the college for the last several years. He was pastor of a church in Boston for six years, but since 1899, he has been in charge of the First Congregational Church of Oak Park, Illinois. Dr. Barton's other books are: A Hero in Homespun (New York, 1897), a Kentucky story, the first of his books that was widely read and reviewed; Sim Galloway's[Pg 127] Daughter-in-Law (Boston, 1897), the Kentucky mountains again, which reappear in The Truth About the Trouble at Roundstone (Boston, 1897); The Story of a Pumpkin Pie (Boston, 1898); The Psalms and Their Story (Boston, 1898); Old Plantation Hymns (1899); When Boston Braved the King (Boston, 1899); The Improvement of Perfection (1900); The Prairie Schooner (Boston, 1900); Pine Knot (New York, 1900), his best known and, perhaps, his finest tale of Kentucky; Lieut. Wm. Barton (1900); What Has Brought Us Out of Egypt (1900); Faith as Related to Health (1901); Consolation (1901); I Go A-Fishing (New York, 1901); The First Church of Oak Park (1901); The Continuous Creation (1902); The Fine Art of Forgetting (1902); An Elementary Catechism (1902); The Old World in the New Century (1902); The Gospel of the Autumn Leaf (1903); Jesus of Nazareth (1904); Four Weeks of Family Worship (1906); The Sweetest Story Ever Told (1907); with Sydney Strong and Theo. G. Soares, His Last Week, His Life, His Friends, His Great Apostle (1906-07); The Week of Our Lord's Passion (1907); The Samaritan Pentateuch (1906); The History and Religion of the Samaritans (1906); The Messianic Hope of the Samaritans (1907); The Life of Joseph E. Roy (1908); Acorns From an Oak Park Pulpit (1910); Pocket Congregational Manual (1910); Rules of Order for Ecclesiastical Assemblies (1910); Bible Classics (1911); and Into All the World (1911). Since 1900 Dr. Barton has been on the editorial staff of The Youth's Companion. The locale of his novels was down on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, amid ignorance and poverty—a background upon which no other writer has painted.

Bibliography. The Nation (August 9, 1900); The Book Buyer (November, 1900); The Independent (July 7, 1910).

[Pg 128]

A WEARY WINTER[29]

[From The Truth About the Trouble at Roundstone (Boston, 1897)]

The winter came and went, and the breach only widened with the progress of the months. The men dropped all pretense of religious observance. They grew more and more taciturn and sullen in their homes. They cared less and less for the society of their neighbors, and as they grew more miserable they grew more uncompromising. When little Ike was sick and Jane going to the spring just before dinner found a gourd of chicken broth, so fresh and hot that it had evidently been left but a few minutes before, she knew how it had come there, and hastened to the house with it. But Larkin saw the gourd and at a glance understood it, and asked,—

"Whar'd ye git that ar gourd? Whose gourd is that?" and snatching it from her, he took it to the door and flung it with all his might. Little Ike cried, for the odor of the broth had already tempted his fickle appetite, and Larkin bribed him to stop crying with promises of candy and all other injurious sweetmeats known to children of the Holler. But when the illness proved to be a sort of winter cholera terminating in flux, he was glad to maintain official ignorance of a bottle of blackberry cordial which also was left at the spring, and which proved of material benefit in the slow convalescence of Ike.

It was thought, at first, that Captain Jack Casey would be able to effect a reconciliation between the men. He was respected in the Holler, and was often useful in adjusting differences between neighbors. He was a justice of the peace, for that matter, and had the law behind him. But his military title and his reputation for fair dealing gave him added authority.

He was the friend of both men, and had known them both in the army. He was Eph's brother-in-law, beside, and their wives' friendship, like their own, dated from that prehistoric period, "before the war."

But even Captain Jack failed to move either of the two enraged neighbors.

[Pg 129]

Brother Manus made several ineffectual attempts at a reconciliation, but at last gave up all hope.

"I'll pray fur 'em," he said, "but I cyant do no more."

Great was his professed faith in prayer; it may be doubted whether this admission did not indicate in his mind a desperate condition of affairs.

But there was one person who could never be brought to recognize the breach between the families. Shoog made her frequent visits back and forth unhindered. To be sure, Ephraim tried to prevent her. He scolded her; he explained to her, and once he even whipped her. But while she seemed to understand the words he spoke, and grieved sorely over her punishments, she could not get through her mind the idea of an estrangement, and at length they gave up trying to have her understand. So, almost daily, when the weather permitted, Shoog crossed the foot log, and wended her way across the bottoms to Uncle Lark's. Larkin at first attempted to ignore her presence, but the attempt failed, and she was soon as much in his arms and heart as she had ever been; and many prayers and good wishes went with her back and forth, as Jane and Martha saw her come and go, and often went a piece with her, though true to their unspoken parole of honor to their husbands, speaking no word to each other.

BENJ. H. RIDGELY

Benjamin Howard Ridgely, short-story writer, was born at Ridgely, Maryland, July 13, 1861. In early childhood he was brought to Woodford county, Kentucky, where he grew to manhood. He was educated in private schools and at Henry Academy. He studied law but abandoned it for journalism. Ridgely removed to Louisville in 1877 to accept a position on The Daily Commercial, which later became The Herald. He went with The Courier-Journal and in a short time he was made city editor. Ridgely left The Courier-Journal to establish The Sunday Truth, of which he was editor, with his friend, Mr. Young E. Allison,[Pg 130] as associate editor. President Cleveland, urged by Col. Henry Watterson and other leading Democrats, appointed Ridgely consul to Geneva, Switzerland, on June 20, 1892, which post he held for eight years. Being able to speak French and Spanish fluently, he was well fitted for the consular service. On May 8, 1900, President McKinley transferred Ridgely to Malaga, Spain, where he remained for two years, when he was again transferred, this time going to Nantes, France, where he also staid for two years. President Roosevelt sent Ridgely to Barcelona, Spain, on November 3, 1904, as consul-general. He resided at that delightful place until March, 1908, when he was made consul-general to Mexico, with his residence at Mexico City. Ridgely died very suddenly at Monterey, Mexico, on October 9, 1908. His body was brought back to Kentucky and interred in Cave Hill cemetery, Louisville; and there he sleeps to-day with no stone to mark the spot. Ridgely's reports to the state department are now recognized as papers of importance, but is upon his short-stories and essays that he is entitled to a place in literature. His stories of consular life, set amid the changing scenes of his diplomatic career, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The Century, McClure's, Scribner's, The Strand, The Pall Mall Magazine, and elsewhere. Writing a miniature autobiography in 1907 he set himself down as the author of a volume of short-stories, which, he said, bore the imprint of The Century Company, New York, were entitled The Comedies of a Consulate, and, strangest thing of all, were published two years prior to the time he was writing, or, in 1905! It is indeed too bad that his alleged publishers fail to remember having issued his book, for one would be worth while. What a castle in Spain for this spinner of consular yarns!

Bibliography. Who's Who in America (1908-1909); The Courier-Journal (Louisville, October 10, 1908).

[Pg 131]

A KENTUCKY DIPLOMAT[30]

[From The Man the Consul Protected (Century Magazine, January, 1905)]

Colonel Gillespie Witherspoon Warfield of Kentucky was an amiable and kindly man of fifty, with the fluent speech and genial good breeding of a typical Blue-grass gentleman. In appearance and dress he was still an ante-bellum Kentuckian, with a weakness for high-heeled boots, long frock-coats, and immaculate linen. When he said, "Yes, sah," or "No, sah," it was like a breath right off the old plantation. It should be added that he was a bachelor and a Mugwump.

Being a Kentuckian, he was naturally a colonel; though, as a matter of fact, it was due solely to the courtesy of the press and the amiable custom of the proud old commonwealth that he possessed his military title. Nor had the genial colonel been otherwise a brilliant success in life. Indeed, I am pained to recite that he had achieved in his varied professional career only a sort of panorama of failures. He had failed at the bar, failed in journalism, failed as a real-estate broker, and, having finally taken the last step, had failed as a life-insurance agent. In this emergency his relatives and friends hesitated as to whether they should run him for Congress or unload him on the consular service. His younger brother, who was something of a cynic, insisted that Gillespie was fitted by intelligence to be only a family physician; but it was finally decided at a domestic council that he would particularly ornament the consular service. In pursuance of this happy conclusion, an organized onslaught was made upon the White House. The President yielded, and one day the news came that Colonel Gillespie Witherspoon Warfield had been appointed consul of the United States to Esperanza.

It is needless to suggest that Colonel Warfield took himself very seriously in his new official capacity. It had not occurred to him, however, that his consular mission was rather a commercial than a patriotic one: he believed that he was going abroad to see that the flag of his country was treated with respect, and to protect those of his fellow-countrymen who in any emergency might have need of the services of an astute and fearless diplomat.[Pg 132] In fact, the feeling that his chief official function was to be that of a sort of diplomatic protecting angel took such possession of him that he assumed a paternal attitude toward the whole country. Thus, bursting with patriotism, he set sail one day from New York for Gibraltar, and was careful during the voyage to let it be understood on shipboard that if anybody needed protection he stood ready to run up the flag and make the eagle scream violently.

Esperanza lies just around the corner from Gibraltar, and nowhere along all the Iberian littoral of the Mediterranean is the sky fairer or the sun more genial. The fertile vega stretches back to the foot-hills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Across the blue-sea way lies Morocco. It is a picturesque and beautiful spot, and if the consul be a dreamer, he may find golden hours for reverie. But I fear that neither the poetry nor the picturesqueness of the entourage appealed to Consul Warfield as he reached Esperanza that blazing September morning. He was more impressed with the shrill noises of the foul and shabby streets; with the dust that was upon everything, giving even to the palm-trees in the parque a gray and dreary look; with the flies that seemed to be hunting their prey in swarms like miniature vultures; with the uncompromising mosquitos singing shrilly for blood, and the bold, busy fleas that held no portion of his official person sacred.

The colonel was a buoyant man, but his exuberant soul felt a certain sinking that hot morning. It was a busy moment at Esperanza, and not much attention was paid to the new consul at the crowded Fonda Cervantes, whither, after a turbulent effort, he had persuaded his cochero to conduct him. He had been much disappointed that the vice-consul was not on hand to receive him at the railway station. The fact is, the consul had thought rather earnestly of a committee and a brass band at the depot, and the complete lack of anything akin to a reception had been something of a shock to his official and personal vanity. However, he was not easily discouraged, and after having convinced the proprietor of the fonda that he was the new American consul, and therefore entitled to superior consideration, he set out to find the consulate.

He found it in a narrow little street that went twisting back[Pg 133] from the quay toward the great dingy cathedral, and certainly it was not what his imagination had fondly pictured it. He had thought of a fine old Moorish-castle sort of house, with a great carved door opening into a spacious patio, splendid with Arabic columns, and in the background a broad marble staircase leading up to the consulate. He had expected to see the flag of his country flying in honor of his arrival, and a uniformed soldier on duty at the entrance, ready to present arms and stand at attention when the new consul appeared.

As a matter of fact, there was a very narrow little door opening into a very narrow little hallway that ran through the center of a very narrow, squalid little house. Over the doorway was perched the consular coat of arms. It was the poorest, dingiest, dustiest little escutcheon that ever bore so pretentious a device.

The dingy gilt letters were almost invisible, but the colonel managed to make them out. He could also see that the figure in the center of the shield was intended to represent a proud and haughty eagle-bird in the act of screaming; but the poor old eagle had been so rained upon and so shone upon, and the dust had gathered so heavily upon him, that he looked like a mere low-spirited reminiscence of the famous Haliaëtus leucocephalus which he was originally meant to represent.

Colonel Warfield of Kentucky was not discouraged. Being, as I have said, a buoyant man, he simply remarked to himself: "I'll have that disreputable-looking fowl taken down and painted." Then he walked on into the squalid little consulate.

An old man with shifty little blue eyes; a thin, keen face; long, straggling gray hair; and a long, thin tuft of gray beard, which looked all the more straggling and wretched because of the absence of an accompanying mustache, sat at a table reading a Spanish newspaper. This was Mr. Richard Brown of Maine, "clerk and messenger" to the United States consulate, who drew the allowance of four hundred dollars a year, and was the recognized bulwark of official Americanism at Esperanza. For forty years, during all the vicissitudes of war and politics, Richard Brown had sat at his desk in the shabby little consulate, watching the procession of American consuls come and go, doing nearly all the clerical work of the office himself, and contemplating with[Pg 134] cynical delight the tortuous efforts of the various untrained new officers to acquaint themselves with their duties and the language of the post.

In his affiliations he had become entirely Spanish, having acquired a fluent knowledge of the language and a wide acquaintance with the people and their ways. None the less, in his speech and appearance he remained a typical down-east Yankee, and it is said at Esperanza that his one conceit was to look like the popular caricature of Uncle Sam. In this it is not to be denied that he succeeded. The "billy-goat" beard; the lantern-jaw; the thin, long hair; the thin, long arms; and the thin, long legs—these he had as if modeled from the caricature. And the nasal twang and the down-east dialect—alas! it would have filled the average melodramatic English novelist's devoted soul with untold satisfaction and delight to hear Richard Brown say "Wal" and "I gaiss," and otherwise mutilate the English language.

To the Spaniards he was known as Don Ricardo. The small Anglo-American colony at Esperanza referred to him as "old Dick Brown." He was a cynical, crusty, sour old man, who had become a sort of consular heirloom at Esperanza, and without whose knowledge and assistance no new American consul could at the outset have performed the simplest official duty. Knowing this, Richard Brown felt a very well-developed sense of his own importance, and looked upon each of his newly arrived superiors with ill-concealed contempt.

There was also a vice-consul at Esperanza; but as he was a busy merchant, who could find time to sign only such papers as old Brown presented to him in the absence of the consul, he was seen little at the consulate. He generally knew when a new consul was coming along or an old consul going away, but in this instance Brown had failed to advise him either of Major Ransom's departure or of Colonel Warfield's arrival. Thus it happened that only the amiable Mr. Brown was on hand when Colonel Warfield came perspiring upon the scene on the warm morning in September of which we write.

"Come in," he said sharply, as the consul hesitated upon the threshold. "What's your business?"

Colonel Warfield gave Mr. Brown a look that would have completely[Pg 135] withered an ordinary person, but which was entirely lost upon the old man in question, and with magnificent dignity handed him the following card:

COLONEL G. WITHERSPOON WARFIELD,
Consul of the United States of America.
ESPERANZA.

Mr. Richard Brown looked the card over carefully.

"Another colonel," he observed grimly. "The last one was a major; the one before him was a capting. Ain't they got nothin' but soldiers to send out here? Who's goin' to run the army? Are you a real colonel or jest a newspaper colonel, or are you a colonel on the governor's staff? There's your office over there on the other side of the hall. Kin you speak Spanish?"

ZOE A. NORRIS

Mrs. Zoe Anderson Norris, novelist and editor, was born at Harrodsburg, Kentucky, in 1861, the daughter of Rev. Henry T. Anderson, who held pastorates in many Kentucky towns. She was graduated from Daughters, now Beaumont, College, when she was seventeen years of age, or in 1878; and two days later she married Spencer W. Norris, of Harrodsburg, and removed to Wichita, Kansas, to live. Years afterwards Mrs. Norris divorced her husband and went to New York to make a name for herself in literature. She began with a Western story, Georgiana's Mother, which appeared in George W. Cable's magazine, The Symposium. Some time thereafter Mrs. Norris went to England—"like an idiot," as she now puts it. In London she "got swamped among the million thieving magazines, threw up the whole job," and traveled for two years on the Continent, writing for American periodicals. When she returned to New York she again wrote for McClure's, Cosmopolitan, The Smart Set, Everybody's, and several other magazines. Mrs. Norris's[Pg 136] first novel, The Quest of Polly Locke (New York, 1902) was a story of the poor of Italy. It was followed by her best known novel, The Color of His Soul (New York, 1903), set against a background of New York's Bohemia, and suppressed two weeks after its publication because of the earnest objections of a young Socialist, who had permitted the author to make a type of him, and, when the story was selling, became dissatisfied because he was not sharing in the profits. The publishers feared a libel suit, and withdrew the little novel. Their action scared other publishers, and she could not find any one to print her writings. A short time later Mrs. Norris narrowly escaped dying as a charity patient in a New York hospital. When she did recover she worked for two years on The Sun, The Post, The Press, and several other newspapers in Manhattan. Twelve Kentucky Colonel Stories (New York, 1905), which were originally printed in The Sun, "describing scenes and incidents in a Kentucky Colonel's life in the Southland," were told Mrs. Norris by Phil B. Thompson, sometime Congressman from Kentucky. The stories have enjoyed a wide sale; and she is planning to issue another set of them shortly. Being badly treated by a well-known magazine, she became so infuriated that she decided to establish—at the suggestion of Marion Mills Miller—a magazine of her own. Thus The East Side, a little thing not so large—speaking of its physical size—as Elbert Hubbard's The Philistine, was born. That was early in 1909; and it has been issued every other month since. Mrs. Norris is nothing if not original; her opinions may not matter much, but they are hers. The four bound volumes of The East Side lie before me now, and they are almost bursting with love, sympathy, and understanding for the poor of New York. She has been and is everything from printer's "devil" to editor-in-chief, but she has made a success of the work. Her one[Pg 137] eternal theme is the poor, in whom she has been interested all her life. For the last seven years she has lived among them; and among them she hopes to spend the remainder of her days. Her one best friend has been William Oberhardt, the artist, who has illustrated The East Side from its inception until the present time. To celebrate the little periodical's first anniversary, Mrs. Norris founded—at the suggestion of Will J. Lampton—The Ragged Edge Klub, which is composed of her friends and subscribers, and which gave her an opportunity to meet all of her "distinguished life preservers" in person. The Klub's dinners delight the diners—and the newspapers! Mrs. Norris's latest novel, The Way of the Wind (New York, 1911), is a story of the sufferings of the Kansas pioneers, and is generally regarded as her finest work. So long as Zoe's Magazine—which is the sub-title of The East Side—continues to come from the press, the pushcart people, the rag pickers, the turkish towel men, the kindling-wood women, the homeless of New York's great East Side will have a voice in the world worth having.

Bibliography. Everybody's Magazine (September, 1909); Cosmopolitan Magazine (January, 1910).

THE CABARET SINGER[31]

[From The East Side (September, 1912)]

For a few moments the orchestra, with dulcet wail of cello and violin, held the attention of those at the tables, then the Cabaret singer stepped out upon the soft, red carpet.

Against the mirrored wall at a small table set a young chap with his wife. The eyes of his wife followed his quick, admiring glances at the singer.

She began to sing "Daddy," sweeping the crowd with her long, soft glance, selecting her victim for the chorus.

She advanced toward the couple. She stood by the husband,[Pg 138] pressed her rosy, perfumed cheek upon his hair, and began to sing.

The young wife flushed crimson as she watched her husband in this delicate embrace, the crowd applauded; and the Cabaret singer, leaving him, went from one to the other of the men, some bald, some young, singing the chorus of "Daddy."

The young wife sighed as the flashing eyes of her husband followed the singer.

"Shall we go home?" she asked presently.

"Not yet!" he implored.

"I wish I could go home," she repeated, by and by. "My baby is crying for me. I know he is. I wish I could go home."

The song finished, the singer ran into the dressing room and threw herself into the arms of the old negress half asleep there. She began to cry softly.

The negress patted her white shoulder.

"What's de mattah, honey," she purred.

"I want to go home," the singer sobbed. "I am sick of that song. I am sick of these men. My baby is crying for me. I know he is. I want to go home!"

IN A MOMENT OF WEARINESS

[From the same]

LUCY CLEAVER McELROY

Mrs. Lucy Cleaver McElroy, author of "uneuphonious feminine, but very characteristic Dickensy sketches," was born near Lebanon, Kentucky, on Christmas Day of 1861. She was the daughter of the late Doctor W. W. Cleaver, a physician of Lebanon. Miss Cleaver was educated in the schools of her native town, and, on September 28, 1881, she was married to Mr. G. W. McElroy, who now resides at Covington, Kentucky. Mrs. McElroy was an invalid for many years, but she did not allow herself to become discouraged and she produced at least one book that was a success. She began her literary career by contributing articles to The Courier-Journal, of Louisville, The Ladies' Home Journal, and other newspapers and periodicals. Mrs. McElroy's first volume, Answered (Cincinnati), a poem, was highly praised by several competent critics. The first book she published that won a wide reading was Juletty (New York, 1901), a tale of old Kentucky, in which lovers and moonshiners, fox-hunters and race horses, Morgan and his men, and a girl with "whiskey-colored eyes," make the motif. Juletty was followed by The Silent Pioneer (New York, 1902), published posthumously. "The silent pioneer" was, of course, Daniel Boone. Both of these novels are now out of print, and they are seldom seen in the old book-shops. Mrs. McElroy died at her home on the outskirts of Lebanon,[Pg 140] Kentucky, which she called "Myrtledene," on December 15, 1901.

Bibliography. The Critic (May, 1901); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xiv).

OLD ALEC HAMILTON[32]

[From Juletty (New York, 1901)]

"If you remember him at all, doctor, you remember that he was a curious man; curious in person, manner, habits, and thoughts.

"He was six feet two inches in height and tipped the Fairbanks needle at the two hundred notch; I believe he had the largest head and the brightest eyes I have ever seen. That big head of his was covered by a dense growth of auburn hair, and as every hair stood separately erect it looked like a big sunburned chestnut burr; his eyes twinkled and snapped, sparkled and glowed, like blue blazes, though on occasion they could beam as softly and tenderly through their tears as those of some lovesick woman. His language was a curious idiom; the result of college training and after association with negroes and illiterate neighbors. Of course, as a child, I did not know his peculiarities, and looked forward with much pleasure to seeing him and my grandmother, of whose many virtues I had heard. My father had expatiated much on the beauty of my grandfather's farm—three thousand broad acres (you have doubtless noticed, doctor, that Kentucky acres always are broad, about twice as broad as the average acre) in the heart of the Pennyrile District. As good land, he said, as a crow ever flew over; red clay for subsoil, and equal to corn crops in succession for a hundred years. But I am going to tell you, doctor, of my visit as a child to my grandfather. I had never seen him, and felt a little natural shrinking from the first meeting. My mother had only been dead a few weeks and—well, in short, my young heart was pretty full of conflicting emotions when I drew near the old red brick house. He was not expecting me, and I had to walk from the railway station. It[Pg 141] was midsummer, and the old gentleman sat, without hat, coat, or shoes, outside his front door. As I drew near he called out threateningly:

"'Who are you?'

"'Why, don't you know me?' I asked pleasantly.

"'No, by Jacks! How in hell should I know you?' he thundered.

"There was nothing repulsive about his profanity; falling from his lips it seemed guileless as cooings of suckling doves, so nothing daunted, I cried out cheerily as one who brings good news:

"'I'm Jack Burton, your grandson!'

"'What yer want here?'

"'Why, I've come to see you, grandfather,' I answered quiveringly.

"'Well, dam yer, take er look an' go home!' he roared.

"'I will!' I shouted indignantly, and more deeply hurt than ever before or since, I turned and ran from him.

"Then almost before I knew it he had me in his great, strong arms, his tears and kisses beating softly down like raindrops on my face, while he mumbled through his sobs:

"'Why, my boy, don't you know your old grandfather's ways? Eliza's son! First-born of my first-born, you are more welcome than sunshine after a storm. Never mind what grandfather says, little man; just always remember he loves you like a son.'

"He had by that time carried me back to his door; there all at once his whole manner changed, and putting me on my feet, he cried: 'Thar, yer damned lazy little rascal, yer expec' me ter carry yer eround like er nigger? Use yer own legs and find yer grandmother.'

"But he could not frighten me then nor ever any more; I had seen his heart, and it was the heart of a poet, a lover, a gentleman, do what he might to hide it."

The doctor had allowed me to have my head, and talk in my rambling, reminiscent fashion, and agreed in my estimate of my grandsire.

"Yessir, just like him for the world!" he cried.

[Pg 142]

"I was at his house one day when the ugliest man in Warren County came out; he did not wait to greet him, but shouted, 'My God, man, don't you wish ugliness was above par? You'd be er Croesus.'"

MARY F. LEONARD

Miss Mary Finley Leonard, maker of many tales for girls, was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1862, but she was brought to Louisville, Kentucky, when but a few months old. Louisville has been her home ever since. Miss Leonard was educated in private schools, and at once entered upon her literary labors. She has published ten books for girls from fourteen to sixteen years of age, but several of them may be read by "grown-ups." The style of all of them is delightfully simple and direct. The Story of the Big Front Door (New York, 1898), was her first story, and this was followed by Half a Dozen Thinking Caps (New York, 1900); The Candle and the Cat (New York, 1901); The Spectacle Man (Boston, 1901); Mr. Pat's Little Girl (Boston, 1902); How the Two Ends Met (New York, 1903); The Pleasant Street Partnership (Boston, 1903); It All Came True (New York, 1904); On Hyacinth Hill (Boston, 1904); and her most recent book, Everyday Susan (New York, 1912). These books have brought joy and good cheer to girls in many lands, and they have been read by many mothers and fathers with pleasure and profit. Miss Leonard has made for herself a secure place in the literature of Kentucky, a place that is peculiarly her own. She has a novel of mature life in manuscript, which is said to be the finest thing she has done so far, and which will be published in 1913.

Bibliography. Munsey's Magazine (March, 1900); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

[Pg 143]

GOODBY[33]

[From The Candle and the Cat (New York, 1901)]

Trolley sat on the gate-post. If possible he was handsomer than ever, for the frosty weather had made his coat thick and fluffy, besides this he wore his new collar. His eyes were wide open to-day, and he looked out on the world with a solemn questioning gaze.

He had been decidedly upset in his mind that morning at finding an open trunk in Caro's room, and clothes scattered about on chairs and on the bed. Of course he did not know what this meant, but to the cat mind anything unusual is objectionable, and it made him unhappy. Finally he stretched himself in the tray, where Caro found him.

"You darling pussie!" she cried, "Mamma do look at him. I believe he wants to go home with us. I wish we could take him."

But Mrs Holland said one little girl was all the traveling companion she cared for. "It wouldn't do dear, he would be unhappy on the train," she added.

"I don't know what I should have done without him. He and my candle were my greatest comforts—except grandpa," and Caro put her cheek down on Trolley's soft fur.

"What am I to do without my little candle?" her grandfather asked.

"Why, you can have the cat," Caro answered merrily.

No wonder Trolley's mind was disturbed that morning with such a coming and going as went on,—people running in to say goodby, and Aunt Charlotte thinking every few minutes of something new for the traveler's lunch, tickling his nose with tantalizing odors of tongue and chicken.

It was over at last, trunks and bags were sent off, Aunt Charlotte was hugged and kissed and then Trolley had his turn, and the procession moved, headed by the president.

"Goodby Trolley; don't forget me!" Caro called, walking backwards and waving her handkerchief.

When they were out of sight Trolley went and sat on the gate-post[Pg 144] and thought about it. After a while he jumped down and trotted across the campus with a businesslike air as if he had come to an important decision. He took his way through the Barrows orchard to the Grayson garden where there was now a well-trodden path through the snow.

Miss Grayson and her brother were sitting in the library. They had been talking about Caro when Walter glancing toward the window saw a pair of golden eyes peering in at him. "There is Trolley," he said, and called Thompson to let him in.

Trolley entered as if he was sure of a welcome, and walking straight to Miss Elizabeth, sprang into her lap; and from this on he became a frequent visitor at the Graysons' dividing his time in fact about evenly between his two homes.

And thus an unfortunate quarrel which had disturbed the peaceful atmosphere of Charmington and separated old friends, was forgotten, and as the president often remarked, it was all owing to the candle and the cat.

JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER

Joseph Alexander Altsheler, the most prolific historical novelist Kentucky has produced, was born at Three Springs, Kentucky, April 29, 1862. He was educated at Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky, and at Vanderbilt University. His father's death compelled him to leave Vanderbilt without his degree, and he entered journalism at Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Altsheler was on the Louisville Evening Post for a year, when he went with The Courier-Journal, with which paper his remained for seven years. During his years on The Courier-Journal he filled almost every position except editor-in-chief. He later went to New York, and, since 1892, has been editor of the tri-weekly edition of The World. Mr. Altsheler was married, in 1888, to Miss Sara Boles of Glasgow, Kentucky, and they have an attractive home in New York.[Pg 145] He began his literary career with a pair of "shilling shockers," entitled The Rainbow of Gold (New York, 1895), and The Hidden Mine (New York, 1896), neither of which did more than start him upon his real work. The full list of his tales hitherto is: The Sun of Saratoga (New York, 1897); A Soldier of Manhattan (New York, 1897); A Herald of the West (New York, 1898); The Last Rebel (Philadelphia, 1899); In Circling Camps (New York, 1900), a story of the Civil War and his best work so far; In Hostile Red (New York, 1900), the basis of which was first published in Lippincott's Magazine as "A Knight of Philadelphia;" The Wilderness Road (New York, 1901); My Captive (New York, 1902); Guthrie of the Times (New York, 1904), a Kentucky newspaper story of success, one of Mr. Altsheler's finest tales; The Candidate (New York, 1905), a political romance. The year 1906 witnessed no book from the author's hand, but in the following year he began the publication of a series of books for boys, as well as several other novels. His six stories for young readers are: The Young Trailers (New York, 1907); The Forest Runners (New York, 1908); The Free Rangers (New York, 1909); The Riflemen of the Ohio (New York, 1910); The Scouts of the Valley (New York, 1911); and The Border Watch (New York, 1912). "All the six volumes deal with the fortunes and adventures of two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and their friends, Shif'less Sol Hyde, Silent Tom Ross and Long Jim Hart, in the early days of Kentucky." Mr. Altsheler's latest historical novels are: The Recovery (New York, 1908); The Last of the Chiefs (New York, 1909); The Horsemen of the Plains (New York, 1910); and The Quest of the Four (New York, 1911). He is at the present time engaged upon a trilogy dealing with the Texan struggle for independence against Mexico, the first of which has recently appeared, The Texan Star (New York, 1912). This tale,[Pg 146] with the other two that are to be issued in 1913, to be entitled, The Texan Scouts, and The Texan Triumph, are written chiefly for the young. He will also publish in 1913 a story to be called Apache Gold. "Joseph A. Altsheler has made a fictional tour of American history," one of his keenest critics has well said; and his work has been linked with James Fenimore Cooper's by no less a judge of literary productions than the late Richard Henry Stoddard.

Bibliography. The Independent (August 9, 1900); The Book Buyer (September, 1900); The Bookman (February, 1903).

THE CALL OF THE DRUM[34]

[From In Circling Camps (New York, 1900)]

Then I listened to the call of the drum.

Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the first cannon shot there set this war drum to beating in every village; it was never silent; its steady roll day after day was calling men up to the cannon mouth; it was persistent, unsatisfied, always crying for more.

Its beat was heard throughout a vast area, over regions whose people knew of each other as part of the same nation but had never met, calling above this line to the North, calling below it to the South, summoning up the legions for a struggle in which old jealousies and old quarrels, breeding since the birth of the Union, were to be settled.

The drum beat its martial note in the great cities of the Atlantic, calling the men away from the forges and the shops and the wharves—clerks, moulders, longshoremen, the same call for all; it passed on, and its steady beat resounded among the hills and mountains of the North, calling to the long-limbed farmer boys to drop the plough and take up the rifle, sending them on to join the moulders, and clerks, and longshoremen, and putting upon all one stamp, the stamp of the soldier, food for the cannon—and this food supply was to be the largest of its time, though few yet dreamed it.

The roll of the drum went on, through the fields, along the[Pg 147] rivers, by the shores of the Great Lakes, out upon the plains, where the American yet fought with the Indian for a foothold, and into the interminable forests whose shades hid the pioneers; over levels and acres and curves of thousands of miles, calling up the deep-chested Western farmers, men of iron muscles and no pleasures, to whom unbroken hardship was the natural course of life, and sending them to join their Eastern brethren at the cannon mouth.

It was an insistent drum, beating through all the day and night, over the mountains, through the sunless woods and on the burnt prairies, never resting, never weary. The opportunity was the greatest of the time, and the drum did not neglect a moment; it was without conscience, and had no use for mercy, calling, always calling.

Another drum and yet the same was beating in the South, and those who came at its call differed in little from the others who were marching to the Northern beat, only the clerks and the mill hands were much fewer; the same long-limbed and deep-chested race, spare alike of figure and speech, brown-faced men from the shores of the Gulf, men of South Carolina in whom the original drop of French blood still tinctured the whole; brethren of theirs from Louisiana, gigantic Tennesseans, half-wild horsemen from the Texas plains—all burning with enthusiasm for a cause that they believed to be right.

This merciless drum rolling out its ironical chuckle noted that these Northern and Southern countrymen gathering to their standards were alike in their lack of pleasure; they were a serious race; life had always been a hard problem for them, a fight, in fact, and this fight into which they were going was merely another kind of battle, with some advantages of novelty and change and comradeship that made it attractive, especially to the younger, the boys. They had been hewers of wood and drawers of water in every sense of the word, though for themselves; generations of them had fought Indians, some suffering torture and death; they had endured bitter cold and burning heat, eaten at scanty tables, and lived far-away and lonely lives in the wilderness. They were a rough and hard-handed race, taught to work and not to be afraid, knowing no masters, accustomed to no splendours[Pg 148] either in themselves or others, holding themselves as good as anybody and thinking it, according to Nature; their faults those of newness and never of decay. These were the men who had grown up apart from the Old World, and all its traditions, far even from the influence which the Atlantic seaboard felt through constant communication. This life of eternal combat in one form or another left no opportunity for softness; the dances, the sports, and all the gaieties which even the lowest in Europe had were unknown to them, and they invented none to take their place.

They knew the full freedom of speech; what they wished to say they said, and they said it when and where they pleased. But on the whole they were taciturn, especially in the hour of trouble; then they made no complaints, suffering in silence. They imbibed the stoicism of the Indians from whom they won the land, and they learned to endure much and long before they cried out. This left one characteristic patent and decisive, and that characteristic was strength. These men had passed through a school of hardship, one of many grades; it had roughened them, but it gave them bodies of iron and an unconquerable spirit for the struggle they were about to begin.

Another characteristic of those who came at the call of the drum was unselfishness. They were willing to do much and ask little for it. They were poor bargain-drivers when selling their own flesh and bones, and their answer to the call was spontaneous and without price.

They came in thousands, and scores of thousands. The long roll rumbling from the sea to the Rocky Mountains and beyond cleared everything; the doubts and the doubters were gone; no more committees; an end to compromises! The sword must decide, and the two halves of the nation, which yet did not understand their own strength, swung forward to meet the issue, glad that it was obvious at last.

There came an exultant note into the call of the drum, as if it rejoiced at the prospects of a contest that took so wide a sweep. Here was long and happy work for it to do; it could call to many battles, and its note as it passed from village to village was resounding and defiant; it was cheerful too, and had in it a trick; it told the long-legged boys who came out of the woods of victories[Pg 149] and glory, of an end for a while to the toil which never before had been broken, of new lands and of cities; all making a great holiday with the final finish of excitement and reasonable risk. It was no wonder that the drum called so effectively when it mingled such enticements with the demands of patriotism. Most of those who heard were no strangers to danger, and those who did not know it themselves were familiar with it in the traditions of their fathers and forefathers; every inch of the land which now swept back from the sea three thousand miles had been won at the cost of suffering and death, with two weapons, the rifle and the axe, and they were not going to shun the present trial, which was merely one in a long series.

The drum was calling to men who understood its note; the nation had been founded as a peaceful republic, but it had gone already through the ordeal of many wars, and behind it stretched five generations of colonial life, an unbroken chain of combats. They had fought everybody; they had measured the valour of the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Hessian, the Mexican, and the red man. Much gunpowder had been burned within the borders of the Union, and also its people had burned much beyond them. Those who followed the call of the drum were flocking to no new trade. By a country with the shadow of a standing army very many battles had been fought.

They came too, without regard to blood or origin; the Anglo-Saxon predominated; he gave his characteristics to North and South alike, all spoke his tongue, but every race in Europe had descendants there, and many of them—English, Irish, Scotch, French, German, Spanish, and so on through the list—their blood fused and intermingled, until no one could tell how much he had of this and how much of that.

The untiring drumbeat was heard through all the winter and summer, and the response still rolled up from vast areas; it was to be no common struggle—great armies were to be formed where no armies at all existed before, and the preparations on a fitting scale went on. The forces of the North and South gathered along a two-thousand-mile line, and those trying to look far ahead saw the nature of the struggle.

The preliminary battles and skirmishes began, and then the two gathered themselves for their mightiest efforts.

[Pg 150]

OSCAR W. UNDERWOOD

Oscar Wilder Underwood, orator and magazine writer, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, May 6, 1862. He is the grandson of Joseph Rogers Underwood, a celebrated Kentucky statesman of the old regime. Mr. Underwood was prepared for the University of Virginia at the Rugby School of Louisville. In 1884 he was admitted to the bar and entered upon the practice of his profession at Birmingham, Alabama, his present home. He was prominent in Alabama politics prior to his election to the lower house of Congress, in 1895, as the representative of the Ninth Alabama district; and he has been regularly returned to that body ever since. Mr. Underwood is chairman of the committee on ways and means of the Sixty-second Congress, as well as majority leader of the House. In the Democratic pre-convention presidential campaign of 1912, the South almost unanimously endorsed Mr. Underwood for the nomination. Led by Alabama he was hailed in many quarters as the first really constructive statesman the South has sent to Congress in more than twenty years; further, his friends said, he has devoted his life to the study of the tariff and is now the foremost exponent of the subject living; his tariff policy is simply this: stop protecting the profits of the manufacturers; and that Underwood is Democracy's best asset. Earlier in the year, Mr. Underwood had been attacked by William J. Bryan, and his retorts in the House were so severe and unanswerable, he being the only man up to that time able to cope with the Colonel, that, of course, he had that distinguished gentleman's influence against him at the Baltimore convention. Nevertheless, every roll-call found him in third place, just behind Champ Clark, who was also born in Kentucky, and Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey. He was running so strong as the convention neared its[Pg 151] close, that at least one Kentucky editor came home and wrote a long editorial calling upon the Kentucky delegation to change its vote from Clark to Underwood; but on the following day the governor of New Jersey was nominated. A few of Mr. Underwood's contributions to periodicals may be pointed out: two articles in The Forum on "The Negro Problem in the South;" "The Corrupting Power of Public Patronage;" "What About the Tariff?" (The World To-day, January, 1912); "The Right and Wrong of the Tariff Question" (The Independent, February 1, 1912); and "High Tariff and American Trade Abroad" (The Century, May, 1912). By friend and foe alike Mr. Underwood is admitted to be the greatest living student of the tariff; and his speeches in Congress and out of it on this subject have given him a national reputation.

Bibliography. The World's Work (March, 1912); Harper's Weekly (June 1, 1912); North American Review (June, 1912).

THE PROTECTION OF PROFITS

[Delivered before the Southern Society of New York City (December 16, 1911)]

The kaleidoscope of political issues must and will continually change with the changing conditions of our Republic but there is one question that was with us in the beginning and will be in the end, and that is the most effective, efficient and fairest way of equalizing the burdens of taxation that are levied by the National Government. Of all the great powers that were yielded to the Federal Government by the States when they adopted the Constitution of our country, the one indispensable to the administration of public affairs is the right to levy and collect taxes. Without the exercise of that power we could not maintain an army and navy; we could not establish the courts of the land; the government would fail to perform its function if the power to tax were taken away from it. The power to tax carries with it the power to destroy, and it is, therefore, a most dangerous governmental power as well as a most necessary one.

[Pg 152]

There is a very clear and marked distinction between the position of the two great political parties of America as to how power to tax should be exercised in the levying of revenue at the custom houses.

The Republican party has maintained the doctrine that taxes should not only be levied for the purpose of revenue, but also for the purpose of protecting the home manufacturer from foreign competition. Of necessity protection from competition carries with it a guarantee of profits. In the last Republican platform this position of the party was distinctly recognized when they declared that they were not only in favor of the protection of the difference in cost at home and abroad but also a reasonable profit to American industries.

The Democratic party favors the policy of raising its taxes at the custom house by a tariff that is levied for revenue only, which clearly excludes the idea of protecting the manufacturer's profits. In my opinion, the dividing line between the positions of the two great parties on this question is very clear and easily ascertained in theory. Where the tariff rates balance the difference in cost at home and abroad, including an allowance for the difference in freight rates, the tariff must be competitive, and from that point downward to the lowest tariff that can be levied it will continue to be competitive to a greater or less extent. Where competition is not interfered with by levying the tax above the highest competitive point, the profits of the manufacturer are not protected. On the other hand, when the duties levied at the custom house equalizes the difference in cost at home and abroad and in addition thereto they are high enough to allow the American manufacturer to make a profit before his competitor can enter the field, we have invaded the domain of the protection of profits. Some men assert that the protection of reasonable profits to the home manufacturer should be commended instead of being condemned, but in my judgment, the protection of any profit must of necessity have a tendency to destroy competition and create monopoly, whether the profit protected is reasonable or unreasonable.

You should bear in mind that to establish a business in a foreign country requires a vast outlay both in time and capital.[Pg 153] Should the foreigner manufacturer attempt to establish himself in this country he must advertise his goods, establish selling agencies and points of distribution before he can successfully conduct his business. After he has done so, if the home producer is protected by a law that not only equals the difference in cost at home and abroad, but also protects a reasonable or unreasonable profit, it is only necessary for him to drop his prices slightly below the point that the law has fixed to protect his profits and his competitor must retire from the country or become a bankrupt, because he would then have to sell his goods at a loss and not a profit, if he continued to compete. The foreign competitor having retired, the home producer could raise his prices to any level that home competition would allow him and it is not probable that the foreigner who had already been driven out of the country would again return, no matter how inviting the field, as long as the law remained on the Statute Books that would enable his competitor to again put him out of business.

Thirty or forty years ago, when we had numbers of small manufacturers, when there was honest competition without an attempt being made to restrict trade and the home market was more than able to consume the production of our mills and factories, the danger and the injury to the consumer of the country was not so great or apparent as it is to-day, when the control of many great industries has been concentrated in the hands of a few men or a few corporations, because domestic competition was prohibited. When we cease to have competition at home and the law prohibits competition from abroad by protecting profits, there is no relief for the consumer except to cry out for government regulation. To my mind, there is no more reason or justice in the government attempting to protect the profits of the manufacturers and producers of this country than here would be to protect the profits of the merchant or the lawyer, the banker or the farmer, or the wages of the laboring man. In almost every line of industry in the United States we have as great natural resources to develop as that of any country in the world. It is admitted by all that our machinery and methods of doing business are in advance of the other nations. By reason of the efficient use of American machinery by American labor, in most[Pg 154] of the manufactures of this country, the labor cost per unit of production is no greater here than abroad. It is admitted, of course, that the actual wage of the American laborer is in excess of European countries, but as to most articles we manufacture the labor cost in this country is not more than double the labor cost abroad. When we consider that the average ad valorem rate of duty levied at the custom house on manufactures of cotton goods is 53% of the value of the article imported and the total labor cost of the production of cotton goods in this country is only 21% of the factory value of the product, that the difference in labor cost at home and abroad is only about as one is to two, and that ten or eleven per cent of the value of the product levied at the custom house would equal the difference in the labor wage, it is apparent that our present tariff laws exceed the point where they equalize the difference in cost at home and abroad, and we realize how far they have entered into the domain of protecting profits for the home manufacturer. This is not only true of the manufacture of cotton goods, but of almost every schedule in the tariff bill. To protect profits of necessity means to protect inefficiency. It does not stimulate industry because a manufacturer standing behind a tariff wall that is protecting his profits is not driven to develop his business along the lines of greatest efficiency and greatest economy. This is clearly illustrated in a comparison of the wool and the iron and steel industries. Wool has had a specific duty that when worked out to an ad valorem basis amounts to a tax of about 90% of the average value of all woolen goods imported into the United States, and the duties imposed have remained practically unchanged for forty years. During that time the wool industry has made comparatively little progress in cheapening the cost of its product and improving its business methods. On the other hand, in the iron and steel industry the tariff rate has been cut every time a tariff bill has been written. Forty years ago the tax on steel rails amounted to $17.50 a ton, to-day it amounts to $3.92. Forty years ago the tax on pig iron was $13.60 a ton, to-day it is $2.50. The same is true of most of the other articles in the iron and steel schedule, and yet the iron and steel industry has not languished; it has not been destroyed and it has not gone[Pg 155] to the wall. It is the most compact, virile, fighting force of all the industries of America to-day. It has long ago expanded its productive capacity beyond the power of the American people to consume its output and is to-day facing out towards the markets of the world, battling for a part of the trade of foreign lands, where it must meet free competition, or, as is often the case, pay adverse tariff rates to enter the industrial fields of its competitor.

Which course is the wiser for our government to take? The one that demands the protection of profits the continued policy of hot-house growth for our industries? The stagnation of development that follows where competition ceases, or, on the other hand, the gradual and insistent reduction of our tariff laws to a basis where the American manufacturer must meet honest competition, where he must develop his business along the best and most economic lines, where when he fights at home to control his market he is forging the way in the economic development of his business to extend his trade in the markets of the world. In my judgment, the future growth of our great industries lies beyond the seas. A just equalization of the burdens of taxation and honest competition, in my judgment, are economic truths; they are not permitted to-day by the laws of our country; we must face toward them, and not away from them.

What I have said does not mean that I am in favor of going to free trade conditions or of being so radical in our legislation as to injure legitimate business, but I do mean that the period of exclusion has passed and the era of honest competition is here.

Let us approach the solution of the problem involved with the determination to do what is right, what is safe, and what is reasonable.

[Pg 156]

ELIZABETH ROBINS

Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Parkes, the well-known novelist of the psychological school, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, August 6, 1862. She was taken from Louisville as a young child by her parents for the reason that her father had built a house on Staten Island, where she lived until her eleventh year, when she went to her grandmother's at Zanesville, Ohio, to attend Putnam Female Seminary, an institution of some renown, where her aunts on both sides of the house had received their training. Mrs. Gano, the one fine character of Miss Robins's first successful novel, The Open Question, is none other than her own grandmother, Jane Hussey Robins, to whom she dedicated the story; and the house in which she lived is faithfully described in that story. In 1874, when she was twelve years of age, Miss Robins made her first visit to Kentucky since having left the State some years before; and she has been back many times since, her latest visit being made in 1912. Her mother and many of her kinsfolk are buried in Cave Hill cemetery; and her brother, uncle, and other relatives, including Charles Neville Buck, the young Kentucky novelist, reside at Louisville. She is, therefore, a Kentuckian to the core. On January 12, 1885, she was married to George Richmond Parkes, of Boston, who died some years ago. While passing through London, in 1889, Mrs. Parkes decided it was the most pleasing city she had seen, and she established herself there. She now maintains Backset Town Farm, Henfield, Sussex; and a winter home at Chinsegut, Florida. Mrs. Parkes won her first fame as an actress, appearing in several of Ibsen's plays, and attracting wide attention for her work in The Master Builder, especially. While on the stage she began to write under the pen-name of "C. E. Raimond," so as not to confuse the public mind with her work as an actress;[Pg 157] and this name served her well until The Open Question appeared, at which time it became generally understood that the actress and author were one and the same person. She soon after began to write under her maiden name of Elizabeth Robins—and thus confounded herself with the wife of Joseph Pennell, the celebrated American etcher. With her long line of novels Miss Robins takes her place as one of the foremost writers Kentucky has produced. A full list of them is: George Mandeville's Husband (New York, 1894); The New Moon (New York, 1895); Below the Salt (London, 1896), a collection of short-stories, containing, among others, The Fatal Gift of Beauty, which was the title of the American edition (Chicago, 1896); The Open Question (New York, 1898). Miss Robins was friendly with Whistler, the great artist, and he designed the covers for Below the Salt and The Open Question, a morbid but powerful novel. She has been especially fortunate in seizing upon a subject of vital, timely importance against which to build her books; and that is one of the real reasons for her success. What the public wants is what she wants to give them. When gold was discovered in the Klondike, and all the world was making a mad rush for those fields, Miss Robins wrote The Magnetic North (New York, 1904). That fascinating story was followed by A Dark Lantern (New York, 1905), "a story with a prologue;" The Convert (New York, 1907), a novel based upon the suffragette movement in London, with which the author has been identified for seven years, and for which she has written more, perhaps, than any one else; Under the Southern Cross (New York, 1907); Woman's Secret (London, 1907); Votes for Women: A Play in Three Acts (London, n. d. [1908]), a dramatization of The Convert, produced by Granville Barker at the Court Theatre, London, with great success. The title of this play, if not the contents, has gone into the[Pg 158] remotest corners of the world as the accepted slogan of the suffragette cause. Come and Find Me! (New York, 1908), another story of the Alaska country, originally serialized in The Century Magazine; The Mills of the Gods (New York, 1908); The Florentine Frame (New York, 1909); Under His Roof (London, n. d. [1910]), yet another short-story of the suffragette struggle in London, printed in an exceedingly slender pamphlet; and Why? (London, 1912), a brochure of questions and answers concerning her darling suffragettes. Upon these books Elizabeth Robins has taken a high place in contemporary letters. Her very latest story is My Little Sister, based upon a background of the white slave traffic in London, the shortened version of which appeared in McClure's Magazine for December, 1912, concluded in the issue for January, 1913, after which it will be published in book form in America under the original title; but the English edition will bear this legend, "Where Are You Going To?" When the first part of this strong story was printed in McClure's it attracted immediate and very wide attention, and again illustrated the ancient fact concerning the author's novels: her ability to make use of one of the big questions of the day as a scene for her story. Another book on woman's fight for the ballot, to be entitled Way Stations may be published in March, 1913. Miss Robins is the ablest woman novelist Kentucky has produced; but her short-stories are not comparable to Mrs. Andrew's.

Bibliography. The Critic (June, 1904); The Bookman (November, 1907); McClure's Magazine (December, 1910); Harper's Magazine (August, 1911).

A PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT[35]

[From The Florentine Frame (New York, 1909)]

Mrs. Roscoe invoked the right manager. The Man at the Wheel was not only accepted, it was announced for early production.[Pg 159] Special scenery was being painted. The rehearsals were speedily in full swing. The play had been slightly altered in council—one scene had been rewritten.

Generously, Keith made his acknowledgements. "I should not have gone at it again, but for you," he told Mrs. Roscoe. "It had got stale—I hated it, till that day I read it to you."

She smiled. "Nobody needs an audience so much as a dramatist. I was audience."

"You brought the fresh eye, you saw how the scène à faire could be made more poignant. Do you know," he said in that way he was getting into, re-envisaging with this companion some old outlook, "I sometimes feel the only difference between the poor thing and the good thing is that in one, the hand fell away too soon, and in the other it was able to give the screw just one more turn. You practically helped me to give the final turn that screwed the thing into shape."

She shook her head, and then he told her that after a dozen rebuffs he had made up his mind to abandon the play that very day he and the Professor had talked of cinque cento ivories.

It was not unnatural that the scant cordiality of Mrs. Mathew, whenever Keith encountered that lady at her sister's house, was insufficient to make him fail in what he acknowledged to Fanshawe as a sort of duty. This was: keeping Mrs. Roscoe fully informed of all the various stages in the contract-negotiation, the cast decisions, and the checkered fortunes of rehearsal.

It is only fair to Mrs. Mathew to admit that she had one reason more cogent even than she quite realized for objecting to the new addition to a circle that had, as Genie complained, grown very circumscribed during the days of mourning.

If keeping Mrs. Roscoe au courant with the fortunes of the play had appeared to Keith in the light of an obligation imposed by common gratitude, Mrs. Mathew conceived it as no less her duty not to allow dislike of the new friend's presence to interfere with the sisterly relation—a relation which on the older woman's part had always had in it a touch of the maternal. If that young man was "getting himself accepted upon an intimate footing"—all the more important that Isabella's elder sister should be there at least as much as usual, if only to prevent the curious from "talking."

[Pg 160]

In pursuance to this conception of her duty, one evening during the later rehearsals, Mrs. Mathew stood just inside the door of the cloak room that opened out of the famous gray and white marble entrance hall of the Roscoe house. Engaged in the homely occupation of depositing her "artics" in a corner where they would not be mixed up with other people's, Mrs. Mathew was arrested by a slight noise. Upon putting out her head she descried Miss Genie creeping down the stairs with a highly conspiratorial air. The girl, betraying every evidence of suppressed excitement, came to a halt before the closed doors of the drawing-room. The sound of Keith's voice reading aloud came softened through the heavy panels, and seemed to reassure the eavesdropper. She ran on noiseless feet to the low seat, where a man's hat showed black against the soft tone of the marble. She lifted the hat and appeared to be fumbling with the coat that was lying underneath.

Suddenly the flash of a small square envelope on its way to the recesses of the visitor's overcoat!

"What are you doing?" demanded Aunt Josephine, coming down the hall.

"Oh! How you startled me! I'm not doing anything in particular—just waiting about till that blessed reading's over." She left the letter concealed in the folds of the coat, and for an instant she held the hat in front of her perturbed face: "Don't men's things have a nice Russia-leathery smell?" she remarked airily.

"Genie Roscoe, what pranks are you playing?" As Mrs. Mathew took hold of the coat, the girl's self-possession failed her a little. She clung to the garment, sending anxious glances toward the door, whispering her nervous remonstrances and begging Aunt Josephine not to talk so loud. "You'll interrupt them."

"What is going on?" demanded Aunt Josephine, relaxing her hold on the coat.

"He's reading."

"Your poor mother!"

"Oh, she likes it."

"Humph! And that young man—does he never get tired of his own works?"

[Pg 161]

"It isn't his works that he's reading. It's other people's—to make him forget the way they murder the play at rehearsal. It's French things they read, usually." Genie hurried on with a nervous attempt to be diverting. "There's a new poet, did you know? I like the new ones best, don't you? What I can't stand is when they are so ancient, that they're like that decayed old Ronsard—"

The form Mrs. Mathew's literary criticism took was a violent shake of the visitor's coat. Out of the folds dropped a note. It was addressed in Genie's hand to Mr. Chester Keith.

"What foolishness is this—"

"Don't tell mother," prayed the girl, trying in vain to recover the envelope.

Mrs. Mathew's face grew graver as she took in the girl's feverish anxiety.

"Dear Aunt Josephine!" Genie slipped her hand coaxingly through the arm of the forbidding-looking lady. "I know you wouldn't be so unkind. For all mother seems so gentle and you sometimes look so severe, you're ten times as forgiving, really, as mother is. You're more broadminded," said the unblushing flatterer.

"Oh, really"—Mrs. Mathew smiled a little grimly—but she had ere now proved herself as accessible to coaxing as the cast-iron seeming people often are. They betray, on occasion, a touching gratitude at not being taken at their own grim word.

"Why should I hesitate to tell what you don't hesitate to do?"

But Genie's arm was round her. "Oh, you know why. Mother has such extravagantly high ideas about what people ought to do."

In the other hand Mrs. Mathew still held the note, out of the girl's reach. "You make a practice of this?"

"No, no. It's the first time, and I'll never do it again, if you'll promise not to tell on me."

Mrs. Mathew hesitated.

"Dearest auntie, be nice! If you tell," the girl protested, "I'll have no character to keep up and I'll write him real—well, real letters."

"What do you mean? Isn't this a real letter?"

[Pg 162]

"No. It doesn't say half. It's nothing to what I could—"

"Very well, if it's nothing—" Mrs. Mathew tore open the note.

Before she could so much as unfold it, Genie had plucked it out of her hand and fled upstairs.

Half way to the top she leaned over the bannisters. "If you tell I'll remember it all my life. If you don't I'll love you for ever and ever."

"You're a very silly child. And I'm not at all sure I won't speak to your mother."

"But I am!" the coppery head was hung ingratiatingly over the hand rail.

Aunt Josephine was already thinking of matters more important than a school girl's foolishness. "How long has that man been here?"

"Oh, hours and hours!" said Genie, accepting the diversion with due gratitude. "He stays longer and longer."

"Humph! that's what I think!" Aunt Josephine stalked into the drawing-room.

ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE

Miss Ellen Churchill Semple, Kentucky's distinguished anthropo-geographer, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1863. Vassar College conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts upon her in 1882, and the Master of Arts in 1891. She then studied for two years at the University of Leipzig. Miss Semple has devoted herself to the new science of anthropo-geography, which is the study of the influence of geographic conditions upon the development of mankind. Since 1897 she has contributed articles upon her subject to the New York Journal of Geography, the London Geographical Journal, and to other scientific publications. Miss Semple's first book, entitled American History and Its Geographic Conditions (Boston, 1903),[Pg 163] proclaimed her as the foremost student of the new science in the United States. A special edition of this work was published for the Indiana State Teachers' Association, which is said to be the largest reading circle in the world. In 1901 Miss Semple prepared an interesting study of The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains, which was issued in 1910 as a bulletin of the American Geographical Society. Miss Semple's latest work is an enormous volume, entitled Influences of Geographic Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography (New York, 1911). This required seven long years of untiring research to prepare, and with its publication she came into her own position, which is quite unique in the whole range of American literature. Although scientific to the last degree, her writings have the real literary flavor, which is seldom found in such work. Miss Semple lectured at Oxford University in 1912, and in the late autumn of that year she discussed Japan, in which country she had experienced much of value and interest, before the Royal British Geographical Society in London, and later before the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in Edinburgh. Between various lectures in Scotland and England she continued her researches in the London libraries, returning to the United States as the year closed.

Bibliography. The Nation (December 31, 1903); Political Science Quarterly (September, 1904).

MAN A PRODUCT OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE[36]

[From Influences of Geographic Environment (New York, 1911)]

Man is a product of the earth's surface. This means not merely that he is a child of the earth, dust of her dust; but that the earth has mothered him, fed him, set him tasks, directed his thoughts, confronted him with difficulties that have strengthened his body and sharpened his wits, given him his problems[Pg 164] of navigation or irrigation, and at the same time whispered hints for their solution. She has entered into his bone and tissue, into his mind and soul. On the mountains she has given him leg muscles of iron to climb the slope; along the coast she has left these weak and flabby, but given him instead vigorous development of chest and arm to handle his paddle or oar. In the river valley she attaches him to the fertile soil, circumscribes his ideas and ambitions by a dull round of calm, exacting duties, narrows his outlook to the cramped horizon of his farm. Up on the windswept plateaus, in the boundless stretch of the grasslands and the waterless tracts of the desert, where he roams with his flocks from pasture to pasture and oasis to oasis, where life knows much hardship but escapes the grind of drudgery, where the watching of grazing herds gives him leisure for contemplation, and the wide-ranging life a big horizon, his ideas take on a certain gigantic simplicity; religion becomes monotheism, God becomes one, unrivalled like the sand of the desert, and the grass of the steppe, stretching on and on without break or change. Chewing over and over the cud of his simple belief as the one food of his unfed mind, his faith becomes fanaticism; his big spacial ideas, born of that ceaseless regular wandering, outgrow the land that bred them and bear their legitimate fruit in wide imperial conquests.

Man can no more be scientifically studied apart from the ground which he tills, or the lands over which he travels, or the seas over which he trades, than polar bear or desert cactus can be understood apart from its habitat. Man's relation to his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal. So complex are they that they constitute a legitimate and necessary object of special study. The investigation which they receive in anthropology, ethnology, sociology and history is piecemeal and partial, limited as to the race, cultural development, epoch, country or variety of geographic conditions taken into account. Hence all these sciences, together with history so far as history undertakes to explain the causes of events, fail to reach a satisfactory solution of their problems, largely because the geographic factor which enters into them all has not been thoroughly analyzed.[Pg 165] Man has been so noisy about the way he has "conquered Nature," and Nature has been so silent in her persistent influence over man, that the geographic factor in the equation of human development has been overlooked.

MRS. ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON

Mrs. Annie Fellows Johnston, creator of the famous "Little Colonel Series," was born at Evansville, Indiana, May 15, 1863, the daughter of a clergyman. Miss Fellows was educated in the public schools of Evansville, and then spent the year of 1881-1882 at the State University of Iowa. She was married at Evansville, in 1888, to William L. Johnston, who died four years later, leaving her a son and daughter. Mrs. Johnston's first arrival in Kentucky as a resident (though not as a visitor), was in 1898, and then she stayed only three years. Her son's quest of health led her first to Walton, New York, then to Arizona, where they spent a winter on the desert in sight of Camelback mountain, which suggested the legend of In the Desert of Waiting. From Arizona they went to California and then, in 1903, decided to try the climate of Texas, up in the hill country, north of San Antonio. Mrs. Johnston called her home "Penacres," and she lived there until her son's death in the fall of 1910. She and her daughter returned to Pewee Valley, Kentucky, in April, 1911, and purchased "The Beeches," the old home of Mrs. Henry W. Lawton, the widow of the famous American general. The house is situated in a six acre grove of magnificent beech-trees, and is a place often mentioned in "The Little Colonel" stories. Mrs. Johnston's books are: Big Brother (Boston, 1893); The Little Colonel (Boston, 1895); Joel: A Boy of Galilee (Boston, 1895; Italian translation, 1900); In League with Israel (Cincinnati,[Pg 166] 1896), the second and last of Mrs. Johnston's books that was not issued by L. C. Page and Company, Boston; Ole Mammy's Torment (1897); Songs Ysame (1897), a book of poems, written with her sister, Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon, the social reformer of Evansville, Indiana; The Gate of the Giant Scissors (1898); Two Little Knights of Kentucky (1899), written in Kentucky; The Little Colonel's House Party (1900); The Little Colonel's Holidays (1901); The Little Colonel's Hero (1902); Cicely (1902); Asa Holmes, or At the Crossroads (1902); Flip's Islands of Providence (1903); The Little Colonel at Boarding-School (1903), the children's "Order of Hildegarde" was founded on the story of The Three Weavers in this volume; The Little Colonel in Arizona (1904); The Quilt that Jack Built (1904); The Colonel's Christmas Vacation (1905); In the Desert of Waiting (1905; Japanese translation, Tokio, 1906); The Three Weavers (1905), a special edition of this famous story; Mildred's Inheritance (1906); The Little Colonel, Maid of Honor (1906); The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding (1907); Mary Ware (1908); The Legend of the Bleeding Heart (1908); Keeping Tryst (1908); The Rescue of the Princess Winsome (1908); The Jester's Sword (1909; Japanese translation, Tokio, 1910); The Little Colonel's Good Times Book (1909); Mary Ware in Texas (1910); and Travellers Five (1911), a collection of short-stories for grown people, previously published in magazines, with a foreword by Bliss Carman. The little Kentucky girl—called the "Little Colonel" because of her resemblance to a Southern gentleman of the old school—has had Mrs. Johnston's attention for seventeen years, and she has recently announced that she is at work upon the twelfth and final volume of the "Little Colonel Series," as she feels that work for grown-ups is more worth her while. This last story of the series was published in the fall of 1912, entitled[Pg 167] Mary Ware's Promised Land; and needless to say her "promised land" is Kentucky. There are "Little Colonel Clubs" all over the world, as Mrs. Johnston has learned from thousands of letters from children, and when she rings down the curtain upon her heroine many girls and boys in this and other countries will be sad.

Bibliography. Current Literature (April, 1901); The Century (September, 1903).

THE MAGIC KETTLE[37]

[From The Little Colonel's Holidays (Boston, 1901)]

Once upon a time, so the story goes (you may read it yourself in the dear old tales of Hans Christian Andersen), there was a prince who disguised himself as a swineherd. It was to gain admittance to a beautiful princess that he thus came in disguise to her father's palace, and to attract her attention he made a magic caldron, hung around with strings of silver bells. Whenever the water in the caldron boiled and bubbled, the bells rang a little tune to remind her of him.

they sang. Such was the power of the magic kettle, that when the water bubbled hard enough to set the bells a-tinkling, any one holding his hand in the steam could smell what was cooking in every kitchen in the kingdom.

It has been many a year since the swineherd's kettle was set a-boiling and its string of bells a-jingling to satisfy the curiosity of a princess, but a time has come for it to be used again. Not that anybody nowadays cares to know what his neighbor is going to have for dinner, but all the little princes and princesses in the kingdom want to know what happened next.

"What happened after the Little Colonel's house party?" they demand, and they send letters to the Valley by the score,[Pg 168] asking "Did Betty go blind?" "Did the two little Knights of Kentucky ever meet Joyce again or find the Gate of the Giant Scissors?" "Did the Little Colonel ever have any more good times at Locust, or did Eugenia ever forget that she too had started out to build a Road of the Loving Heart?"

It would be impossible to answer all these questions through the post-office, so that is why the magic kettle has been dragged from its hiding-place after all these years, and set a-boiling once more. Gather in a ring around it, all you who want to know, and pass your curious fingers through its wreaths of rising steam. Now you shall see the Little Colonel and her guests of the house party in turn, and the bells shall ring for each a different song.

But before they begin, for the sake of some who may happen to be in your midst for the first time, and do not know what it is all about, let the kettle give them a glimpse into the past, that they may be able to understand all that is about to be shown to you. Those who already know the story need not put their fingers into the steam, until the bells have rung this explanation in parenthesis.

(In Lloydsboro Valley stands an old Southern mansion, known as "Locust." The place is named for a long avenue of giant locust-trees stretching a quarter of a mile from house to entrance gate in a great arch of green. Here for years an old Confederate colonel lived all alone save for the negro servants. His only child, Elizabeth, had married a Northern man against his wishes, and gone away. From that day he would not allow her name to be spoken in his presence. But she came back to the Valley when her little daughter Lloyd was five years old. People began calling the child the Little Colonel because she seemed to have inherited so many of her grandfather's lordly ways as well as a goodly share of his high temper. The military title seemed to suit her better than her own name for in her fearless baby fashion she won her way into the old man's heart and he made a complete surrender.

Afterward when she and her mother and "Papa Jack" went to live with him at Locust, one of her favorite games was playing soldier. The old man never tired of watching her march through the wide halls with his spurs strapped to her tiny[Pg 169] slipper heels, and her dark eyes flashing out fearlessly from under the little Napoleon cap she wore.

She was eleven when she gave her house party. One of the guests was Joyce Ware, whom some of you have met, perhaps, in "The Gate of the Giant Scissors," a bright thirteen-year-old girl from the West. Eugenia Forbes was another. She was a distant cousin of Lloyd's, who had no home-life like other girls. Her winters were spent in a fashionable New York boarding-school, and her summers at the Waldorf-Astoria, except the few weeks when her busy father could find time to take her to some seaside resort.

The third guest, Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis, or Betty, as every one lovingly called her, was Mrs. Sherman's little god-daughter. She was an orphan, boarding on a backwoods farm on Green River. She had never been on the cars until Lloyd's invitation found its way to the Cuckoo's Nest. Only these three came to stay in the house, but Malcolm and Keith MacIntyre (the two little Knights of Kentucky) were there nearly every day. So was Rob Moore, one of the Little Colonel's summer neighbors.

The four Bobs were four little foxterrier puppies named for Rob, who had given one to each of the girls. They were so much alike they could only be distinguished by the colour of the ribbons tied around their necks. Tarbaby was the Little Colonel's pony, and Lad the one that Betty rode during her visit.

After six weeks of picnics and parties, and all sorts of surprises and good times, the house party came to a close with a grand feast of lanterns. Joyce regretfully went home to the little brown house in Plainsville, Kansas, taking her Bob with her. Eugenia and her father went to New York, but not until they had promised to come back for Betty in the fall, and take her abroad with them. It was on account of something that had happened at the house party, but which is too long a tale to repeat here.

Betty stayed on at Locust until the end of the summer in the House Beautiful, as she called her god-mother's home, and here on the long vine-covered porch, with its stately white pillars, you shall see them first through the steam of the magic caldron).

Listen! Now the kettle boils and the bells begin the story!

[Pg 170]

EVA A. MADDEN

Miss Eva Anne Madden, author of a group of popular stories for children, was born near Bedford, Kentucky, October 26, 1863, the elder sister of Mrs. George Madden Martin, creator of Emmy Lou. Miss Madden was educated in the public schools of Louisville, Kentucky, after which she took a normal course. At the mature age of fourteen she was writing for The Courier-Journal; two years later she was doing book reviews for The Evening Post; and when eighteen years of age she became a teacher in the public schools. Miss Madden taught for more than ten years, or until 1892, when she went to New York and engaged in newspaper work. Her first book, Stephen, or the Little Crusaders (New York, 1901), was published only a few months before she sailed for Europe, where she has resided for the last eleven years. Miss Madden's The I Can School (New York, 1902), was followed by her other books, The Little Queen (Boston, 1903); The Soldiers of the Duke (Boston, 1904); and her most recent story, Two Royal Foes (New York, 1907). Miss Madden has been the Italian representative of a London firm since 1907; and since 1908 she has been the correspondent of the Paris edition of the New York Herald for the city in which she lives, Florence, Italy. She had a very good short-story in The Century for February, 1911, entitled The Interrupted Pen.

Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xv); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

THE END OF "THE I CAN SCHOOL."[38]

[From The I Can School (New York, 1902)]

"Good-bye, Miss Ellison," she said, putting up her little mouth to be kissed. "I'm sorry that it's the end of the 'I Can School.'"

[Pg 171]

Then Miss Ellison was all smiles.

"You sweet little thing," she said, which was exactly what she had done ten months before.

How long ago that seemed to Virginia. How stupid she had been about learning to spell that easy "cat."

Now she could read a whole page about a black cat which got into the nest of a white hen, and she could add numbers, and "write vertical." She had painted in a book, and modeled a lovely half-apple, made real by a stem and the seeds of a russet she had had for lunch one day. She knew the name of all the birds about Fairview, and she could tell about the wild flowers.

Altogether she felt very learned and scornful of a certain small person who had thought Kentucky the name of a little girl, and who had known nothing of George Washington, and who had called C-A-T kitten-puss.

Virginia's mamma was very proud of all her little girl knew. She did not wait for Virginia to get her work from the janitor. She took it all carefully home to show her husband.

"Papa," said Virginia, the moment Mr. Barton entered the house that evening, "it's vacation!"

"Vacation!" said her father. "My! my! I remember that there was a time, Miss Barton, when I loved it better than school; do you?"

Virginia hesitated.

"Ten months," she said at last, "is a lot of school. Lucretia and Catherine seem just as tired, papa. Their lessons don't interest them now that it's so hot. I love the 'I Can School,' papa; but it's nice to stay at home and play 'Lady come to see.'"

This was a very long speech for Virginia, the longest that she ever had made.

Her papa laughed.

"Miss Barton," he said, "profound student that you are, I see that in some things you are not altogether different from your parent. But let me remind you, Miss Barton, when you feel at times a little tired of vacation, that the 'I Can' will begin again on the tenth of September."

"And Miss Ellison will be so glad to see me!" said Virginia confidently.

Her papa laughed.

[Pg 172]

"As for that, Miss Barton—"

"Now don't, Edward," interrupted his wife. "I am sure, Virginia, that Miss Ellison will be glad to see you in the fall. If I were you I would write her a little letter in the vacation. I have her address."

"And I'll tell Billy and Carter and Harry and all the children, and we'll all write so that she won't forget us. And she'll answer them, mamma, won't she?"

"I think she will," answered her mother. "It will be very nice for you to write to her."

But her husband said in a low voice, "Poor Miss Ellison."

"Good Miss Ellison, papa," said Virginia. "She's nice and I love her."

JOHN FOX, Jr.

John Fox, Junior, Kentucky's master maker of mountain myths, was born at Stony Point, near Paris, Kentucky, December 16, 1863, the son of a schoolmaster. He was christened "John William Fox, Junior," but he early discarded his middle name. By his father he was largely fitted for Kentucky, now Transylvania, University, which institution he entered at the age of fifteen, spending the two years of 1878-1880 there, when he left and went to Harvard. Mr. Fox was graduated from Harvard in 1883, the youngest man in his class. Though he had written nothing during his collegiate career, upon quitting Cambridge he joined the staff of the New York Sun and later entered Columbia Law School. He soon abandoned law and went with the New York Times, where he remained several months, when illness—blind and blessed goddess in disguise!—compelled him to go south in search of health. At length he found himself high up in the Cumberland Mountains, associated with his father and brother in a mining venture. He also taught school for a time,[Pg 173] but the mountaineers of Kentucky were upon him, and he began to weave romances about them. Mr. Fox's first story, A Mountain Europa (New York, 1894), originally appeared in two parts in The Century Magazine for September and October, 1892. It was dedicated to James Lane Allen, whom its author had to thank for encouragement when he stood most in need of it. On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek, which followed fast upon the heels of his first book, made Mr. Fox famous in a fortnight. Written in a day and a half, Harper's Weekly paid him the munificent sum of six dollars for it, and printed it back with the advertisements in the issue for November 24, 1894. The ending was transposed just a bit and a word or two discarded for apter words before it was published in book form; and these revisions were very fine, greatly improving the tale. In its most recent dress it counts less than five small pages; and it may be read in as many minutes. The mountain dialect prevails throughout. It "admits an epic breadth," the biggest thing Mr. Fox has done hitherto, and now generally regarded as a very great short-story.

A Cumberland Vendetta and Other Stories (New York, 1895), contained, besides the title-story, first published in The Century, a reprinting of A Mountain Europa—which made the third time it had been printed in three years—The Last Stetson, and On Hell-fer-Sartain Creek. This volume was followed by Mr. Fox's finest work, entitled Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories (New York, 1897). Of the ten stories in this little volume but four of them are in correct English, the others, the best ones, being in dialect. The last and longest story, A Purple Rhododendron, originally appeared in The Southern Magazine, a now defunct periodical of Louisville, Kentucky. The Kentuckians (New York, 1897), was published a short time after Hell-fer-Sartain and Other Stories.[Pg 174] This novelette pitted a man of the Blue Grass against a man of the Kentucky hills, and the struggle was not overly severe; the reading world did little more than remark its appearance and its passing.

When the Spanish-American war was declared Mr. Fox went to Cuba as a Rough Rider, but left that organization to act as correspondent for Harper's Weekly. He witnessed the fiercest fighting from the firing lines, and his own experiences were largely written into his first long novel, entitled Crittenden (New York, 1900). This tale of love with war entwined was well told; and its concluding clause: "God was good that Christmas!" has become one of his most famous expressions. After the war Mr. Fox returned to the South. Bluegrass and Rhododendron (New York, 1901), was a series of descriptive essays upon life in the Kentucky mountains, in which Mr. Fox did for the hillsmen what Mr. Allen had done for the customs and traditions of his own section of the state in The Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. It also embodied his own personal experiences as a member of the police guard in Kentucky and Virginia. The word "rhododendron" is Mr. Fox's shibboleth, and he seemingly never tires of writing it.

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (New York, 1903), is his best long novel so far. The boy, Chad, is, perhaps, his one character-contribution to American fiction; and the boy's dog, "Jack," stands second to the little hero in the hearts of the thousands who read the book. The opening chapters are especially fine. The love story of The Little Shepherd is most attractive; and the Civil War is presented in a manner not wholly laborious. After Hell-fer-Sartain this novel is far and away the best thing Mr. Fox has done.

Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories (New York, 1904), contained the title-story and five others,[Pg 175] including The Last Stetson, which had appeared many years before in Harper's Weekly, and later in A Cumberland Vendetta. Mr. Fox attempted to reach the theatre of the Russian-Japanese War, as a correspondent for Scribner's Magazine, but he was not allowed to join the ever advancing armies. His experiences may be read in Following the Sun-Flag (New York, 1905), with its tell-tale sub-title: "a vain pursuit through Manchuria." His next work was a novelette, A Knight of the Cumberland (New York, 1906), first published as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. It was well done and rather interesting.

Mr. Fox spent the greater part of the year of 1907 in work upon The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (New York, 1908), a story that must be placed beside The Little Shepherd when any classification of the author's work is made. The heroine, June, is none other than Chad in feminine garb. The book contains some of the most excellent writing Mr. Fox has done, the descriptions being especially fine. It was dramatized by Eugene Walter and successfully produced. A few months after the publication of The Trail, the author married Fritzi Scheff, the operatic star, to whom he had inscribed his story. They have a home at Big Stone Gap, in the Virginia mountains.

In April, 1912, Mr. Fox's most recent novel, The Heart of the Hills, began as a serial in Scribner's, to be concluded in the issue for March, 1913. It is red with recent happenings in Kentucky, happenings which are, at the present time, too hackneyed to be of very great interest to the people of that state.[39] It must be remembered always that Mr. Fox is a story-teller pure and simple, and[Pg 176] that he seemingly makes little effort to arrive at the stage of perfection in the mere matter of writing that characterizes the work of a group of his contemporaries. That he is a wonderful maker of short-stories in the mountain dialect is certain; but that he is a great novelist is yet to be established.

Bibliography. Current Literature Magazine (New York, September, 1903); Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books, by E. F. Harkins, (Boston, 1903, Second Series); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. iv).

THE CHRISTMAS TREE ON PIGEON[40]

[From Collier's Weekly (December 11, 1909)]

The sun of Christmas poured golden blessings on the head of the valley first; it shot winged shafts of yellow light through the great Gap and into the month of Pigeon; it darted awakening arrows into the coves and hollows on the Head of Pigeon, between Brushy Ridge and Black Mountain; and one searching ray flashed through the open door of the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon and played like a smile over the waiting cedar that stood within—alone.

Down at the mines below, the young doctor had not waited the coming of that sun. He had sprung from his bed at dawn, had built his own fire, had dressed hurriedly, and gone hurriedly on his rounds, leaving a pill here, a powder there, and a word of good cheer everywhere. That was his Christmas tree, the cedar in the little schoolhouse—his and hers. And she was coming up from the Gap that day to dress that tree and spread the joy of Christmas among mountain folks, to whom the joy of Christmas was quite unknown.

An hour later the passing mail-carrier, from over Black Mountain, stopped with switch uplifted at his office door.

"Them fellers over the Ridge air comin' over to shoot up yo' Christmas tree," he drawled.

The switch fell and he was gone. The young doctor dropped[Pg 177] by his fire—stunned; for just that thing had happened ten years before to the only Christmas tree that had ever been heard of in those hills except his own. From that very schoolhouse some vandals from the Crab Orchard and from over Black Mountain had driven the Pigeon Creek people after a short fight, and while the surprised men, frightened women and children, and the terrified teacher scurried to safety behind rocks and trees, had shot the tree to pieces. That was ten years before, but even now, though there were some old men and a few old women who knew the Bible from end to end, many grown people and nearly all of the children had never heard of the Book, or of Christ, or knew that there was a day known as Christmas Day. That such things were so had hurt the doctor to the heart, and that was why, as Christmas drew near, he had gone through the out-of-the-way hollows at the Head of Pigeon, and got the names and ages of all the mountain children; why for a few days before Christmas there had been such a dressing of dolls in the sweetheart's house down in the Gap as there had not been since she herself was a little girl; and why now the cedar tree stood in the little log schoolhouse at the forks of Pigeon. Moreover, there was as yet enmity between the mountaineers of Pigeon and the mountaineers over the Ridge and Black Mountain, who were jealous and scornful of any signs of the foreign influence but recently come into the hills. The meeting-house, courthouse, and the schoolhouse were yet favorite places for fights among the mountaineers. There was yet no reverence at all for Christmas, and the same vandals might yet regard a Christmas tree as an imported frivolity to be sternly rebuked. The news was not only not incredible, it probably was true; and with this conclusion some very unpleasant lines came into the young doctor's kindly face and he sprang from his horse.

Two hours later he had a burly mountaineer with a Winchester posted on the road leading to the Crab Orchard, another on the mountainside overlooking the little valley, several more similarly armed below, while he and two friends, with revolvers, buckled on, waited for the coming party, with their horses hitched in front of his office door. This Christmas tree was to be.

It was almost noon when the doctor heard gay voices and[Pg 178] happy laughter high on the ridge, and he soon saw a big spring wagon drawn by a pair of powerful bays—Major, the colored coachman, on the seat, the radiant faces of the Christmas-giving party behind him, and a big English setter playing in the snow alongside.

Up Pigeon then the wagon went with the doctor and his three friends on horseback beside it, past the long batteries of coke-ovens with grinning darkies, coke-pullers, and loaders idling about them, up the rough road through lanes of snow-covered rhododendrons winding among tall oaks, chestnuts, and hemlocks, and through circles and arrows of gold with which the sun splashed the white earth—every cabin that they passed tenantless, for the inmates had gone ahead long ago—and on to the little schoolhouse that sat on a tiny plateau in a small clearing, with snow-tufted bushes of laurel on every side and snowy mountains rising on either hand.

The door was wide open and smoke was curling from the chimney. A few horses and mules were hitched to the bushes near by. Men, boys, and dogs were gathered around a big fire in front of the building; and in a minute women, children, and more dogs poured out of the schoolhouse to watch the coming cavalcade.

Since sunrise the motley group had been waiting there: the women thinly clad in dresses of worsted or dark calico, and a shawl or short jacket or man's coat, with a sunbonnet or "fascinator" on their heads, and men's shoes on their feet—the older ones stooped and thin, the younger ones carrying babies, and all with weather-beaten faces and bare hands; the men and boys without overcoats, their coarse shirts unbuttoned, their necks and upper chests bared to the biting cold, their hands thrust in their pockets as they stood about the fire, and below their short coat sleeves their wrists showing chapped and red; while to the little boys and girls had fallen only such odds and ends of clothing as the older ones could spare. Quickly the doctor got his party indoors and to work on the Christmas tree. Not one did he tell of the impending danger, and the Colt's .45 bulging under this man's shoulder or on that man's hip, and the Winchester in the hollow of an arm here and there were sights[Pg 179] too common in these hills to arouse suspicion in anybody's mind. The cedar tree, shorn of its branches at the base and banked with mosses, towered to the angle of the roof. There were no desks in the room except the one table used by the teacher. Long, crude wooden benches with low backs faced the tree, with an aisle leading from the door between them. Lap-robes were hung over the windows, and soon a gorgeous figure of Santa Claus was smiling down from the very tiptop of the tree. Ropes of gold and silver tinsel were swiftly draped around and up and down; enmeshed in these were little red Santas, gaily colored paper horns, filled with candy, colored balls, white and yellow birds, little colored candles with holders to match, and other glittering things; while over the whole tree a glistening powder was sprinkled like a mist of shining snow. Many presents were tied to the tree, and under it were the rest of the labeled ones in a big pile. In a semicircle about the base sat the dolls in pink, yellow, and blue, and looking down the aisle to the door. Packages of candy in colored Japanese napkins and tied with a narrow red ribbon were in another pile, with a pyramid of oranges at its foot. And yet there was still another pile for unexpected children, that the heart of none should be sore. Then the candles were lighted and the door flung open to the eager waiting crowd outside. In a moment every seat was silently filled by the women and children, and the men, stolid but expectant, lined the wall. The like of that tree no soul of them had ever seen before. Only a few of the older ones had ever seen a Christmas tree of any kind and they but once; and they had lost that in a free-for-all fight. And yet only the eyes of them showed surprise or pleasure. There was no word—no smile, only unwavering eyes mesmerically fixed on the wonderful tree.

The young doctor rose, and only the sweetheart saw that he was nervous, restless, and pale. As best he could he told them what Christmas was and what it meant to the world; and he had scarcely finished when a hand beckoned to him from the door. Leaving one of his friends to distribute the presents, he went outside to discover that one vandal had come on ahead, drunk and boisterous. Promptly the doctor tied him to a tree, shouldered a Winchester, and himself took up a lonely vigil on[Pg 180] the mountainside. Within, Christmas went on. When a name was called a child came forward silently, usually shoved to the front by some relative, took what was handed to it, and, dumb with delight, but too shy even to murmur a word of thanks, silently returned to its seat with the presents hugged to its breast—presents that were simple, but not to those mountain mites; colored pictures and illustrated books they were, red plush albums, simple games, fascinators and mittens for the girls; pocket-knives, balls, firecrackers, and horns, mittens, caps, and mufflers for the boys; a doll dressed in everything a doll should wear for each little girl, no one of whom had ever seen a doll before, except what was home-made from an old dress or apron tied in several knots to make the head and body. Twice only was the silence broken. One boy quite forgot himself when given a pocket-knife. He looked at it suspiciously and incredulously, turned it over in his hand, opened it and felt the edge of the blade, and, panting with excitement, cried: "Hit's a shore 'nough knife!"

And again when, to make sure that nobody had been left out, though all the presents were gone, the master of ceremonies asked if there was any other little boy or girl who had received nothing, there arose a bent, toothless old woman in a calico dress and baggy black coat, her gray hair straggling from under her black sunbonnet, and her hands gnarled and knotted from work and rheumatism. Simply as a child, she spoke:

"I hain't got nothin'."

Gravely the giver of the gifts asked her to come forward, and, nonplussed, searched the tree for the most glittering thing he could find. Then all the women pressed forward and then the men, until all the ornaments were gone, even the half-burned candles with their colored holders, which the men took eagerly and fastened in their coats, clasping the holders to their lapels or fastening the bent wire in their button-holes, and pieces of tinsel rope, which they threw over their shoulders—so that the tree stood at last just as it was when brought from the wild woods outside.

Straightway then the young doctor hurried the departure of the merry-makers from the Gap. Already the horses stood[Pg 181] hitched, and, while the laprobes were being carried out, a mountaineer, who had brought along a sack of apples, lined up the men and boys, and at a given word started running down the road, pouring out the apples as he ran, while the men and boys scrambled for them, rolling and tussling in the snow. As the party moved away, the mountaineers waved their hands and shouted good-by to the doctor, too shy still to pay much heed to the other "furriners" in the wagon. The doctor looked back once with a grateful sigh of relief but no one in the wagon knew that there had been any danger that day. How great the danger had been not even the doctor knew then. For the coming vandals had got as far as the top of the Dividing Ridge, had there quarreled and fought among themselves, so that, as the party drove away, one invader was at that minute cursing his captors, who were setting him free, and high upon the ridge another lay dead in the snow.

In time there was a wedding at the Gap, and long afterward the doctor, riding by the little schoolhouse, stopped at the door, and from his horse shoved it open. The Christmas tree stood just as he had left it on Christmas Day, only, like the evergreens on the wall and over the windows, it, too, was brown, withered and dry. Gently he closed the door and rode on.

FANNIE C. MACAULAY

Mrs. Fannie Caldwell Macaulay ("Frances Little"), "the lady of the Decoration," was born at Shelbyville; Kentucky, November 22, 1863, the daughter of a jurist. She was educated at Science Hill Academy, Shelbyville, a noted school for girls. Miss Caldwell was married to James Macaulay of Liverpool, England, but her marriage proved unhappy. From 1899 to 1902 Mrs. Macaulay was a kindergarten teacher in Louisville, Kentucky; and from 1902 to 1907 she was engaged as supervisor of kindergarten work at Hiroshima, Japan.[Pg 182] From Japan she wrote letters home which were so charming and clever that her niece, Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice, the Louisville novelist, insisted that she make them into a book. The result was The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906), for more than a year the most popular book in America. This little epistolary tale of heroic struggle for one's work and one's love, was read in all parts of the English-speaking world. It set the high-water mark, probably, for even the "six best sellers." Mrs. Macaulay's second book, Little Sister Snow (New York, 1909), was the tender love story of a young American and a Japanese girl. The lad sailed away to his American sweetheart, leaving "Little Sister Snow" blowing him kisses from her native shore. Mrs. Macaulay's latest story, The Lady and Sada San (New York, 1912), was published in London under the title of The Lady Married, which was clearer, as it is the sequel to The Lady of the Decoration. The Lady's husband, Jack, sails away to China in pursuit of his scientific duties, leaving her lonely in Kentucky. She decides to make another journey to Japan; and on the way over she falls in with a charming young American-Japanese girl, Sada San, whom she subsequently saves from a most cruel fate. She then finds her husband, ill and exhausted with his long trip, and returns with him to Kentucky. The descriptions of the countries through which she passes are very fine: the best writing the author has shown hitherto. The little volume was reported as the best selling book in America at Christmas time of 1912. Mrs. Macaulay has spent much of her life during the last several years in Japan, but her home is at Louisville. She is a prominent club woman, and a charming lecturer upon the beauties of Nippon.

Bibliography. The Bookman (June, 1906); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

[Pg 183]

APPROACHING JAPAN[41]

[From The Lady of the Decoration (New York, 1906)]

Still on Board. August 18th.

Dear Mate:

I am writing this in my berth with the curtains drawn. No I am not a bit sea-sick, just popular. One of the old ladies is teaching me to knit, the short-haired missionary reads aloud to me, the girl from South Dakota keeps my feet covered up, and Dear Pa and Little Germany assist me to eat.

The captain has had a big bathing tank rigged up for the ladies, and I take a cold plunge every morning. It makes me think of our old days at the cottage up at the Cape. Didn't we have a royal time that summer and weren't we young and foolish? It was the last good time I had for many a long day—but there, none of that!

Last night I had an adventure, at least it was next door to one. I was sitting up on deck when Dear Pa came by and asked me to walk with him. After several rounds we sat down on the pilot house steps. The moon was as big as a wagon wheel and the whole sea flooded with silver, while the flying fishes played hide and seek in the shadows. I forgot all about Dear Pa and was doing a lot of thinking on my own account when he leaned over and said:

"I hope you don't mind talking to me. I am very, very lonely." Now I thought I recognized a grave symptom, and when he began to tell me about his dear departed, I knew it was time to be going.

"You have passed through it," he said. "You can sympathize."

I crossed my fingers in the dark. "We are both seeking a life work in a foreign field—" he began again, but just here the purser passed. He almost stumbled over us in the dark and when he saw me and my elderly friend, he actually smiled!

Don't you dare tell Jack about this, I should never hear the last of it.

Can you realize that I am three whole weeks from home! I[Pg 184] do, every second of it. Sometimes when I stop to think what I am doing my heart almost bursts! But then I am so used to the heartache that I might be lonesome without it; who knows?

If I can only do what is expected of me, if I can only pick up the pieces of this smashed-up life of mine and patch them into a decent whole that you will not be ashamed of, then I will be content.

The first foreign word I have learned is "Alohaoe," I think it means "my dearest love to you." Anyhow I send it laden with the tenderest meaning. God bless and keep you all, and bring me back to you a wiser and a gladder woman.

JAMES D. BRUNER

James Dowden Bruner, editor of many masterpieces of French literature, as well as an original critic of that literature, was born near Leitchfield, Kentucky, May 19, 1864. He was graduated from Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana, in 1888, and then taught French and German at Franklin for two years. Professor Bruner studied a year in Paris and Florence and, on his return to this country, in 1893, he was elected professor of Romance languages in the University of Illinois. Johns Hopkins University conferred the degree of Ph. D. upon him, in 1894, his dissertation being The Phonology of the Pistojese Dialect (Baltimore, 1894, a brochure). From 1895 to 1899 Dr. Bruner was professor of Romance languages and literatures in the University of Chicago; from 1901 to 1909 he held a similar chair in the University of North Carolina; and since 1909 he has been president of Chowan College, Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Dr. Bruner has edited, with introductions and critical notes, Les Adventures du Dernier Abencerage, par Chateaubriand (New York, 1903); Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre, par[Pg 185] Octave Feuillet (Boston, 1904); Hernani, par Victor Hugo (New York, 1906); and Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908), his finest critical edition of any French classic hitherto. His Studies in Victor Hugo's Dramatic Characters (Boston, 1908), announced the advent of a new critic of the great Frenchman's plays. It is an excellent piece of work.

Bibliography. Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xv); Who's Who in America (1912-1913).

THE FRENCH CLASSICAL DRAMA[42]

[From Le Cid, par Pierre Corneille (New York, 1908)]

Corneille in the Cid founded the French classical drama. Before the appearance of this masterpiece, a transition drama containing characteristics of the tragi-comedy as well as of the regular classical tragedy, of which Corneille's next three plays, Horace, Cinna, and Polyeucte, were to be perfect examples, the tragi-comedy prevailed in France. This tragi-comedy, or irregular drama, was a Renaissance product, having a history and characteristics of its own, being largely influenced by the tragedies of Seneca. Its most important characteristics are non-historic subjects, serious or tragic plots, the mixture of comic and tragic elements or tones, the high rank of the leading characters, the style noble, looseness of structure, the disregard of the minor or Italian unities of time and place, the classical form of verse and number of acts, romanesque elements, and a happy ending.

The most striking characteristic of the French classical drama of the seventeenth century, as of the modern short story, is that of compression. This statement is true both as to its form and its content. The accidental accessories of splendid decorations, magnificent costumes, subsidiary plots, and secondary characters that might detract from the main situation or obscure the general impression, are, as far as possible, sacrificed to the essential or necessary interests of dramatic art. Improbable and irrational[Pg 186] elements are reduced to a minimum. Digressions, episodes, long soliloquies, oratorical tirades, minute descriptions of external nature, and complicated machinery that would encumber the plot or destroy proportion, are largely eliminated. The classical dramatist is too sensitive to the beautiful, the sublime, the essential, and the universal to admit into his conception of fine art either moral and physical deformity or the accidental and particular aspects of life. Classical tragedy is furthermore narrow in its choice of subject and form, in its number and range of characters, in its representation of material and physical action on the stage, and in its number of events, incidents, and actions. Its subjects and materials are taken almost wholly from ancient classical and Hebrew sources. Mediaeval, national, and modern foreign raw material, whether life, history, legend, or literature, is seldom utilized. Its manners and ideas are those of the court and the salons, and its religion is pagan. Its language is general, cold, regular, and conventional, and its versification is confined to rimed Alexandrine couplets, with the immovable caesura and little enjambement.

The Frenchman's love of proportion, symmetry, restraint, and logical order led him to the cult of form. In striving after perfection of form, he naturally adopted compression as the best method of expressing this innate artistic reserve. This compactness and concentration of form, this compressed brevity, which the Frenchman inherited from the Latins, is well illustrated by the following lines from Wordsworth:

MADISON CAWEIN

Madison Cawein, whom English critics name the greatest living American poet, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, March 23, 1865. He was christened "Madison Julius Cawein," but he had not gotten far in the literary lane before his middle name was dropped, though the "J." may be found upon the title-pages of his earlier books. After some preparatory work he entered the Louisville Male High School, in 1881, at the age of sixteen years. At high school Madison Cawein began to write rhymes which he read to the students and teachers upon stated occasions, and he was hailed by them as a true maker of song. He was graduated in 1886 in a class of thirteen members. Being poor in purse, Mr. Cawein accepted a position in a Louisville business house, and he is one of the few American poets who wrote in the midst of such commercialism. His was the singing heart, not to be crushed by conditions or environment of any kind. The year after his graduation he collected the best of his school verse and published them as his first book, Blooms of the Berry (Louisville, 1887). In some way William Dean Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich saw this volume, praised it, and fixed the future poet in his right path. The Triumph of Music (Louisville, 1888), sounded after The Blooms of the Berry, and since that time hardly a year has passed without the poet putting forth a slender volume. The next few years saw the publication of his Accolon of Gaul (Louisville, 1889); Lyrics and Idyls (Louisville, 1890); Days and Dreams (New York, 1891); Moods and Memories (New York, 1892); Red Leaves and Roses (New York, 1893); Poems of Nature and Love (New York, 1893); Intimations of the Beautiful (New York, 1894), one of his longest poems; The White Snake (Louisville, 1895), metrical translations from the German poets; Undertones (Boston,[Pg 188] 1896), which contained some of the finest lyrics he has done so far; The Garden of Dreams (Louisville, 1896); Shapes and Shadows (New York, 1898); Idyllic Monologues (Louisville, 1898); Myth and Romance (New York, 1899); One Day and Another (Boston, 1901), a lyrical eclogue; Weeds by the Wall (Louisville, 1901); A Voice on the Wind (Louisville, 1902). A glance at these titles, following fast upon each other, convinces the reader that Mr. Cawein was writing and publishing far too much, that he was not sufficiently critical of his work. Edmund Gosse, the famous English critic, has always been one of Mr. Cawein's most ardent admirers, and, in 1903, he selected the best of his poems, wrote a delightful introduction for them, and they were published in London under the title of Kentucky Poems. This volume brought the poet many new friends, as it assembled the best of his work from volumes long out of print and rather difficult to procure. The Vale of Tempe (New York, 1905), contained the best of Mr. Cawein's work written since the publication of Weeds by the Wall in 1901. Nature-Notes and Impressions (New York, 1906), a collection of poems and prose-pastels, was especially notable for the fact that it contained the first and only short-story the poet has written, entitled "Woman or—What?"

The Poems of Madison Cawein (Indianapolis, 1907, five volumes), charmingly illustrated by Mr. Eric Pape, the Boston artist, with Mr. Gosse's introduction, brought together all of Mr. Cawein's work that he cared to rescue from many widely scattered volumes. He made many revisions in the poems, some of which (in the judgment of the writer) tend to mar their original beauty. But it is a work of which any poet may be proud; and it is not surpassed in quality or quantity by any living American.

Mr. Cawein's Ode in Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Louisville, 1908), which[Pg 189] he read at Gloucester in August, 1907, was rather lengthy, but it contained many strong and fine lines; and a group of New England sonnets, some of the best he has done, appeared at the end of the ode. His New Poems (London, 1909), was followed by The Giant and the Star (Boston, 1909), a small collection of children's verse, dedicated to his little son, who furnished their inspiration. Let Us Do the Best that We Can (Chicago, 1909), was a beautiful brochure; and The Shadow Garden and Other Plays (New York, 1910), was four chamber-dramas which have been highly praised, and which contain some of the most delicate work the poet has done. So Many Ways (Chicago, 1911), was another pamphlet-poem; and it was followed by Poems (New York, 1911), selected from the whole range of his work by himself, with a foreword by William Dean Howells. Mr. Cawein's latest volume is entitled The Poet, the Fool and the Faeries (Boston, 1912). It brings together his work of the last two or three years, both in the field of the lyric and of the drama. And from the mechanical aspect it is his most beautiful book. The poet will publish two books through a Cincinnati firm in 1913, to be entitled The Republic—a Little Book of Homespun Verse, and Minions of the Moon.

In March, 1912, literary Louisville celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Blooms of the Berry, and the forty-seventh birthday of its author, Madison Cawein, the city's most distinguished man of letters. This was the first public recognition Mr. Cawein has received in the land of his birth, though it is now proposed to place a bust of him in the public library of Louisville. He is better known in New York or London than he is in Kentucky, but it will not be long before the people of his own land realize that they have been entertaining a world-poet, possibly, unawares. He is so far removed from any Kentucky poet of the present school that to mention him[Pg 190] in the same breath with any of them is to make one's self absurd. Looking backward to the beginnings of our literature and coming carefully down the slope to this time, but two poets rise out of the mist of yesterday to greet Cawein and challenge him for the laureateship of Kentucky makers of song: Theodore O'Hara with his immortal elegy, and Daniel Henry Holmes with his sheaf of tender lyrics. These three are the nearest approach to the ineffable poets—who left the earth with the passing of Tennyson—yet nurtured upon Kentucky soil.

Mr. Cawein is, of course, a poet of Nature, a landscape poet in particular who paints every color on the palette into his work. Had he been an artist he would have exhausted all colors conceived thus far by man, and would fain have originated new ones. There are literally hundreds of his poems in which every line is as surely a stroke as if done with the brush of a painter. Color, color, is his shibboleth-scheme, and he who would woo Nature in her richest robes may read Cawein and be content.

Amazing as it may seem Mr. Cawein has thirty-four volumes to his credit—almost one for every year of his life. This statement stamps him as one of the most prolific poets of modern times, if not, indeed, of all time. And that it is not all quantity, may be seen in the recent declaration of The Poetry Review of London: "He appears quite the biggest figure among American poets; his return to nature has no tinge of affectation; it is genuine to the smallest detail. If he suffers from fatigue, it is in him, at least, not through that desperate satiety of town life which with so many recent poets has ended in impressionism and death."

Bibliography. Poets of the Younger Generation, by William Archer (London, 1901); The Younger American Poets, by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (Boston, 1904); History of American[Pg 191] Literature, by R. P. Halleck (New York, 1911); The Poetry Review (London, October, 1912).

CONCLUSION[43]

[From Undertones (Boston, 1896)]

INDIAN SUMMER[44]

[From Kentucky Poems (London, 1903)]

[Pg 193]

HOME[45]

[From Nature-Notes and Impressions (New York, 1906)]

LOVE AND A DAY[46]

[From The Poems of Madison Cawein (Indianapolis, 1907, v. ii)]

IN A SHADOW GARDEN[47]

[From The Shadow Garden, and Other Plays (New York, 1910)]

UNREQUITED[48]

[From Poems (New York, 1911)]

A TWILIGHT MOTH

[From the same]

GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN

Mrs. George Madden Martin, the mother of Emmy Lou, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, May 3, 1866. She is the sister of Miss Eve Anne Madden, who has also written several delightful books for children. She was educated in the public schools of Louisville, but on account of ill-health her training was concluded at home. In 1892 Miss Madden was married to Mr. Attwood R. Martin, and they have made their home at Anchorage, Kentucky, some miles from Louisville, ever since. Mrs. Martin's first book was The Angel of the Tenement (New York, 1897), now out of print, which she seemingly regards with so little favor that it is seldom found in the list of her works. Emmy Lou—Her Book and Heart (New York, 1902), made her famous throughout the English-reading world. It ran serially in McClure's Magazine during 1900. It is a masterpiece and, though she has published several stories since, this remains as her best book hitherto. Little "Emmy Lou" gets into the reader's heart in the most wonderful way, and, once there, she will not be displaced. She is the most charming child in Kentucky literature, a genuine creation. Mrs. Martin's short novel, The House of Fulfillment (New York, 1904) won her praise from people who could not care for her child, though the heroine was none other than "Emmy Lou" in long skirts. This was followed by Abbie Ann (New York, 1907); Letitia: Nursery Corps, U. S. A. (New York, 1907), was a very winsome little girl,[Pg 199] who causes the men of the army many trials and vexations at various military posts where her parents happened to be stationed. Emmy Lou and Letitia, as has been pointed out by one of Mrs. Martin's keenest critics, regard childhood through the eyes of age and are best appreciated, perhaps, by adults; while Abbie Ann sees childhood through a child's eyes, and is certainly more appreciated by children than by grown-ups. Two of Mrs. Martin's most recent stories, When Adam Dolve and Eve Span, appeared in The American Magazine for October, 1911; and The Blue Handkerchief, in The Century for December, 1911.

Bibliography. McClure's Magazine (February, 1903); The Outlook (October 1, 1904); McClure's Magazine (December, 1904).

EMMY LOU'S VALENTINE[49]

[From Emmy Lou—Her Book and Heart (New York, 1902)]

About this time rumors began to reach Emmy Lou. She heard that it was February, and that wonderful things were peculiar to the Fourteenth. At recess the little girls locked arms and talked Valentines. The echoes reached Emmy Lou.

The Valentines must come from a little boy, or it wasn't the real thing. And to get no valentine was a dreadful thing—dreadful thing. And even the timidest of the sheep began to cast eyes across at the goats.

Emmy Lou wondered if she would get a valentine. And if not, how was she to survive the contumely and shame?

You must never, never breathe to a living soul what was on your valentine. To tell even your best and truest little girl friend was to prove faithless to the little boy sending the valentine. These things reached Emmy Lou.

Not for the world would she tell. Emmy Lou was sure of that, so grateful did she feel she would be to anyone sending her a valentine.

[Pg 200]

And in doubt and wretchedness did she wend her way to school on the Fourteenth day of February. The drug-store window was full of valentines. But Emmy Lou crossed the street. She did not want to see them. She knew the little girls would ask her if she had gotten a valentine. And she would have to say, No.

She was early. The big, empty room echoed back her footsteps as she went to her desk to lay down book and slate before taking off her wraps. Nor did Emmy Lou dream the eye of the little boy peeped through the crack of the door from Miss Clara's dressing-room.

Emmy Lou's hat and jacket were forgotten. On her desk lay something square and white. It was an envelope. It was a beautiful envelope, all over flowers and scrolls.

Emmy Lou knew it. It was a valentine. Her cheeks grew pink.

She took it out. It was blue. And it was gold. And it had reading on it.

Emmy Lou's heart sank. She could not read the reading. The door opened. Some little girls came in. Emmy Lou hid her valentine in her book, for since you must not—she would never show her valentine—never.

The little girls wanted to know if she had gotten a valentine, and Emmy Lou said, Yes, and her cheeks were pink with the joy of being able to say it.

Through the day, she took peeps between the covers of her Primer, but no one else might see it.

It rested heavy on Emmy Lou's heart, however, that there was reading on it. She studied surreptitiously. The reading was made up of letters. It was the first time Emmy Lou had thought about that. She knew some of the letters. She would ask someone the letters she did not know by pointing them out on the chart at recess. Emmy Lou was learning. It was the first time since she came to school.

But what did the letters make? She wondered, after recess, studying the valentine again.

Then she went home. She followed Aunt Cordelia about. Aunt Cordelia was busy.

[Pg 201]

"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou.

Aunt Cordelia listened.

"B," said Emmy Lou, "and e?"

"Be," said Aunt Cordelia.

If B was Be, it was strange that B and e were Be. But many things were strange.

Emmy Lou accepted them all on faith.

After dinner she approached Aunt Katie.

"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, "m and y?"

"My," said Aunt Katie.

The rest was harder. She could not remember the letters, and had to copy them off on her slate. Then she sought Tom, the house-boy. Tom was out at the gate talking to another house-boy. She waited until the other boy was gone.

"What does it read?" asked Emmy Lou, and she told the letters off the slate. It took Tom some time, but finally he told her.

Just then a little girl came along. She was a first-section little girl, and at school she never noticed Emmy Lou.

Now she was alone, so she stopped.

"Get any valentines?"

"Yes," said Emmy Lou. Then moved to confidence by the little girl's friendliness, she added, "It has reading on it."

"Pooh," said the little girl, "they all have that. My mamma's been reading the long verses inside to me."

"Can you show them—valentines?" asked Emmy Lou.

"Of course, to grown-up people," said the little girl.

The gas was lit when Emmy Lou came in. Uncle Charlie was there, and the aunties, sitting around, reading.

"I got a valentine," said Emmy Lou.

They all looked up. They had forgotten it was Valentine's Day, and it came to them that if Emmy Lou's mother had not gone away, never to come back, the year before, Valentine's Day would not have been forgotten. Aunt Cordelia smoothed the black dress she was wearing because of the mother who would never come back, and looked troubled.

But Emmy Lou laid the blue and gold valentine on Aunt Cordelia's knee. In the valentine's centre were two hands clasping.[Pg 202] Emmy Lou's forefinger pointed to the words beneath the clasped hands.

"I can read it," said Emmy Lou.

They listened. Uncle Charlie put down his paper. Aunt Louise looked over Aunt Cordelia's shoulder.

"B," said Emmy Lou, "e—Be."

The aunties nodded.

"M," said Emmy Lou, "y—my."

Emmy Lou did not hesitate. "V," said Emmy Lou, "a, l, e, n, t, i, n, e—Valentine. Be my Valentine."

"There!" said Aunt Cordelia.

"Well!" said Aunt Katie.

"At last!" said Aunt Louise.

"H'm!" said Uncle Charlie.

MARY ADDAMS BAYNE

Mrs. Mary Addams Bayne, novelist, was born near Maysville, Kentucky, in 1866. Upon the death of her parents, she made her home with her brother, Mr. William Addams of Cynthiana, Kentucky, recently an aspirant for the gubernatorial chair of Kentucky. Miss Addams was married to Mr. James C. Bayne, a banker and farmer of Bagdad, Kentucky. Mrs. Bayne was a teacher and a short-story writer for some years before she became a novelist. Her first book, Crestlands (Cincinnati, 1907) was a centennial story of the famous Cane Ridge meeting-house, near Paris, Kentucky, the birthplace of the Stoneite or Reformed church. Crestlands is important as history and entertainingly told as a story. It was followed by Blue Grass and Wattle (Cincinnati, 1909), the sub-title of which is more illuminating, "The Man from Australia." This novel relates the religious life of a young Australian, educated in Kentucky, and his many fightings within and[Pg 203] without form an interesting story. From the literary standpoint Blue Grass and Wattle is an advance over Crestlands, and it is an earnest for yet superior work in Mrs. Bayne's new novel, now in preparation. In the fall of 1912 Mrs. Bayne purchased the old Burnett place at Shelbyville, Kentucky, and this she has converted into the most charming home of that town.

Bibliography. Letters of Mrs. Bayne to the Author; The Christian Standard (December, 1907).

THE COMING OF THE SCHOOLMASTER[50]

[From Crestlands (Cincinnati, 1907)]

The spirit of Indian Summer, enveloped in a delicate bluish haze, pervaded the Kentucky forest. Through the treetops sounded a sighing minor melody as now and then a leaf bade adieu to the companions of its summer revels, and sought its winter's rest on the ground beneath. On a fallen log a red-bird sang with jubilant note. What cared he for the lament of the leaves? True, he must soon depart from this summer-home; but only to wing his way to brighter skies, and then return when mating-time should come again. Near a group of hickory-trees a colony of squirrels gathered their winter store of nuts; and a flock of wild turkeys led by a pompous, bearded gobbler picked through the underbrush. At a wayside puddle a deer bent his head to slake his thirst, but scarcely had his lips touched the water when his head was reared again. For an instant he listened, limbs quivering, nostrils dilating, a startled light in his soft eyes; then with a bound he was away into the depths of the forest. The turkeys, heeding the tocsin of alarm from their leader, sought the shelter of the deeper undergrowth; the squirrels dropped their nuts and found refuge in the topmost branches of the tree which they had just pilfered; but the red-bird, undisturbed, went on with his caroling, too confident in his own beauty and the charm of his song to fear any intruder.

The cause of alarm was a horseman whose approach had been[Pg 204] proclaimed by the crackling of dried twigs in the bridle-path he was traversing. He was an erect, broad-shouldered, dark-eyed young man with ruddy complexion, clear-cut features, and a well-formed chin. A rifle lay across his saddle-bow, and behind him was a pair of bulky saddle-bags. He wore neither the uncouth garb of the hunter nor the plain home-spun of the settler, but rather the dress of the Virginian cavalier of the period, although his hair, instead of being tied in a queue, was short, and curled loosely about his finely shaped head. The broad brim of his black hat was cocked in front by a silver boss; the gray traveler's cape, thrown back, revealed a coat of dark blue, a waistcoat ornamented with brass buttons, and breeches of the same color as the coat, reaching to the knees, and terminating in a black cloth band with silver buckles.

He rode rapidly along the well-defined bridle-way, and soon emerged into a broader thoroughfare. Presently he heard the high-pitched, quavering notes of a negro melody, faint at first and seeming as much a part of nature as the russet glint of the setting sun through the trees. The song grew louder as he advanced, until, emerging into an open space, he came upon the singer, a gray-haired negro trudging sturdily along with a stout hickory stick in his hand. The negro doffed his cap and bowed humbly.

"Marstah, hez you seed anythin' ob a spotted heifer wid one horn broke off, anywhars on de road? She's pushed down de bars an' jes' skipped off somewhars."

"No, uncle. I've met no stray cows; but can you tell me how far it is to Major Hiram Gilcrest's? I'm a stranger in this region."

"Major Gilcrest's!" exclaimed the darkey. "You'se done pass de turnin' whut leads dar. Did' you see a lane forkin' off 'bout a mile back by de crick, close to de big 'simmon-tree? Dat's de lane whut leads to Marstah Gilcrest's, suh."

"Ah, I see! but perhaps you can direct me to Mister Mason Rogers' house? My business is with him as well as with Major Gilcrest."

"I shorely kin," answered the negro, with a grin. "I b'longs to Marse Mason; I'se his ole uncle Tony. We libs two[Pg 205] mile fuddah down dis heah same road, an' ef you wants to see my marstah an' Marstah Gilcrest bofe, you might ez well see Marse Mason fust, anyways; kaze whutevah he say, Marse Hiram's boun' to say, too. Dey's mos' mighty thick."

The stranger turned his head to hide a momentary smile.

"You jes' ride straight on," continued Uncle Tony, pointing northward with his stick; "fus' you comes to a big log house wid all de shettahs barred up, settin' by itse'l a leetle back frum de road, wid a woods all roun' it—dat's Cane Redge meetin'-house. Soon's you pass it, you comes to de big spring, den to a dirty leetle cabin whar dem pore white trash, de Simminses, libs. Den you strikes a cawnfiel', den a orchid. Den you's dar. De dawgs and chickens will sot up a tur'ble rumpus, but you jes' ride up to the stile and holler, 'Hello!' and some dem no-'count niggahs'll tek you' nag and construct you inter Miss Cynthy Ann's presence. I'd show you de way myse'f, on'y Is'e bountah fin' dat heifer; but you carn't miss de way."

With this he hobbled off down the road in search of the errant heifer. Meanwhile our traveler rode steadily forward until, in another half-hour, he came in sight of a more prosperous-looking clearing than any he had seen since leaving Bourbonton.

ELIZABETH CHERRY WALTZ

Mrs. Elizabeth Cherry Waltz, creator of Pa Gladden, was born at Columbus, Ohio, December 10, 1866, the daughter of Major John Nichols Cherry, to whose memory she inscribed her first book. Miss Cherry was graduated from the Columbus High School; and a short time thereafter she was married. The death of her husband compelled her to become the breadwinner for her several children, and in 1895 she joined the staff of the Cincinnati Tribune, which she left after two years for the Springfield, Ohio, Republic-Times, with which she was connected for a year. On July 4, 1898, she was married to Frederick[Pg 206] Hastings Waltz, a few years her junior, and they settled at Louisville, where he had a position on The Courier-Journal. Mrs. Waltz became literary editor of The Courier-Journal, and this position she held until her death. Though she followed Miss Mary Johnston, W. H. Fields, Mrs. Hester Higbee Geppert, and Ernest Aroni[51] in assuming charge of the paper's literary page, and the standards were thus high, she was one of the ablest writers that has ever conducted that department. Mrs. Waltz was a tremendous worker, one of her associates having written that, after a hard day's work on the paper, she would "go home, cook, wash and iron, clean house, do assignments, then write until after midnight on her 'Pa Gladden' stories; she wrote while going and coming on the street cars, and sometimes wrote on her cuffs with a lead pencil!" Mrs. Waltz's chief contribution to prose fiction is her well-known character, "Pa Gladden." These stories were accepted by The Century Magazine in 1902, and they were published from time to time, being brought together in a charming book, entitled Pa Gladden—The Story of a Common Man (New York, 1903; London, n. d. [1905]). "Pa Gladden" is certainly a real creation. Christian, optimist, lover of his kind, and above all companionable, he preached and lived the gospel of goodness. Some critics of the stories have quarreled with the great amount of dialect, most of which is used by Pa Gladden, but this is the only adverse comment that was made. The prayers of Pa, said throughout the book, are always very beautiful. Mrs. Waltz's death occurred very suddenly at her home in Louisville, "Meadowbrook," September 19,[Pg 207] 1903, almost simultaneous with the appearance of her book. She was buried at Columbus, Ohio; and her grave is unmarked. The Ancient Landmark (New York, 1905), her posthumous novel, was a vigorous attack upon the divorce evil. She died before her time, worn out with work, and thus Kentucky and the whole country lost a writer of real achievement and greater promise.

Bibliography. The Outlook (December 5, 1903); Who's Who in America (1903-1905).

PA GLADDEN AND THE WANDERING WOMAN[52]

[From Pa Gladden (New York, 1903)]

In the early darkness of the winter night Pa Gladden returned to the barn laden with a lamp, a candle, tea, and food. He felt glad he had sent for the doctor, although he attributed the young woman's illness to exposure and anxiety. She was tossing on the warm bed, at times unable to speak intelligibly. She drank the warm tea he gave her, and again asked for the doctor. Being assured that he would soon come, she turned her face to the wall. It was such a sorrowful sight that, setting the candle down on the floor, Pa Gladden knelt upon the boards and prayed fervently:

"Father of love, look down on our sorrerful darter this holy night when redeemin' love should fill all our hearts, this Christmas night when ye sent yer Son inter the world ter bear all our sins an' ignorances. Heal 'er sore heart, O Lord, heal 'er wounds with the soothin' balm o' thy love. Hold 'er in thy arms in all 'er trouble an' tribbelations, an' let Christmas day be a real turnin'-point in 'er life."

When he rose, the young woman was sitting up, her eyes full of deep meaning.

"You are a good man," she said. "I want to say I deserve it, all your goodness. I am not"—her voice rose to a shriek—"I am not wicked. You can pray for me, and over me if I should die. I am not afraid to be here. It's quiet and peaceful.[Pg 208] I will try to be patient. Please tell me your name, sir."

"Pa Gladden."

"Mine is Mary, plain Mary. Have you any daughter?"

"No"—with lingering regret; "but I'm allers Pa Gladden ter all the folks."

"If you had a daughter, Pa Gladden, she'd likely be grown up."

"Prubable."

"And married; and you might be praying for her, right by her side, like you are here. God bless you forever and forever, Pa Gladden!" She ended with a sob.

"Don't take on so. Won't ye come inter the house, my darter? I'll make it all right with Drusilly. Hers is a good heart."

"No, no. I'm afraid of women. Does it make you feel bad to see me cry, Pa Gladden? Then I'll set my lips tighter. Just let me stay here. If you had a daughter she'd want to be quiet now, peaceful and quiet."

He sat by her for a few moments longer.

"The doctor wull be comin' ter the house presently," he said cheerfully. "I must go an' pilot him here. Lie still, darter; he'll soon git something' outen them old leather saddle-bags ter quiet ye down. Doc Briskett knows his business."

She held out her hand to him.

"Yes, go, Pa Gladden, but leave me the little candle. It's lonesome in the dark when one is in misery. And I'll listen for your footsteps."

Pa was not much too soon. He heard the bump and rattle of the doctor's cart over the hard road before he reached the red gate.

"Now hold hard, doc," he called out as he swung it open. "Go out the barn road. Yer patient air out thar."

"Jee whillikins!" exclaimed Doc Briskett. "You never have brought me 'way out here to see a sick cow on a church-festival night!"

Pa climbed in beside him.

"It's a pore woman thet's sick," he announced calmly, and unfolded his story for the doctor's amazed ears.

[Pg 209]

"Pa Gladden!" exclaimed the doctor. "God alone knows what sort of an illness she may have. However, I'll see her. A tramp is likely to have any disease traveling."

A lamp stood on the old table in the room, and the burly doctor took it and climbed to the upper room. Pa Gladden paused at the doorway to look over the white world of Christmas eve. On such a night, he thought, the shepherds watched, the star shone, the angels sang, the Child was born. Pa Gladden heard the voice of his mother in the long ago:

Then, hoarse and terrible, came the doctor's voice as he almost tumbled down the ladder:

"Pa, pa, get in that cart and drive like mad to Dilsaver's. Meenie is at home, and tell her I said to come back with you. Bring her here; bring some woman, for the love of God!"

REUBENA HYDE WALWORTH

Miss Reubena Hyde Walworth, author of a brief comedy that has come down to posterity with a deal of the perfume of permanency, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, February 21, 1867. She was the granddaughter of Reuben Hyde Walworth (1788-1867), the last chancellor of New York State, the feminine form of whose name she bore. Her father was the well-known novelist, Mansfield Tracy Walworth (1830-1873); and her mother and sister were writers of reputation. So it will be seen at a glance that Miss Walworth inherited her literary tastes legitimately. She began by contributing poems to the periodicals, but her one-act comediette, entitled Where was Elsie? or the Saratoga Fairies (New York, 1888), written[Pg 210] before she was of age, made her widely known. This little comedy is now out of print, and it is exceedingly scarce. Miss Walworth was graduated from Vassar College in 1896, being poet of the class, and one of the editors of The Vassarian. She then taught in a woman's college for a time, when the war with Spain was declared and she determined to go to the front as a volunteer nurse. Miss Walworth was one of the higher heroines of that war. The last months of her life were spent at the detention hospital, Montauk, New York, where she rendered noble service in her country's cause. She was stricken with fever and died on October 18, 1898. Her body was taken to her home at Saratoga Springs, New York, and buried with military honors. Miss Walworth's comedy and lyrics should be republished.

Bibliography. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1889, v. vi); A Dictionary of American Authors, by O. F. Adams (Boston, 1905).

THE UNDERGROUND PALACE OF THE FAIRIES

[From Where was Elsie? (New York, 1888)]

Act I, Scene IV. Enter Jack and Elsie with fairy flask and taper.

Elsie. Is this the room, Mr. Jack o' Lantern?

Jack. Yes, Elsie, this is the room where the King told me to take you and await his presence. What a pity it is the Prince—[Stops].

Elsie. Prince! what Prince?

Jack. Sh! walls have ears, Elsie, and, indeed, I forgot that the King had forbidden us ever to speak of him again. But I must be off to dance attendance on the Queen. Her majesty, be it said with all due reverence, is not over-sweet when her loyal subjects are slow to obey her commands. [Exit, but immediately puts his head in the door.] Don't forget the magical water, Elsie. [Exit.]

Elsie. That's so; I had forgotten that I must drink this.[Pg 211] [Looks at flask in her hand.] Jack says that it keeps anybody from growing old so fast; but if you get it from the fairies on Christmas eve, the way I did, you won't ever grow old. Oh dear! I don't want to be young forever. I want to grow up, and be sixteen. Then I'd wear my hair high, and have a long train. [Struts up and down, but stops suddenly.] Well, I don't care, you couldn't play hop-scotch in a train. [Looking about her.] I don't think this room's pretty, a bit. [Catches sight of something shining on the wall.] Oh my! what's that shiny thing? Wouldn't it be fun if there were a secret door there, just like a story book! I'm going to see what it is. [Stops.] Dear me! I forgot that horrid flask! [Brightening up.] Maybe it'll make me nice and old, though. I'll take the old spring water first, anyhow, and then I'll see what that thing is over there. I wonder what will happen. [Drinks.]

Curtain.

CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT

Crittenden Marriott, novelist, was born at Baltimore, March 20, 1867, the great grandson of Kentucky's famous statesman, John J. Crittenden, the grandson of Mrs. Chapman Coleman, who wrote her father's biography, and the son of Cornelia Coleman, who was born at Louisville, Kentucky, and lived there until her marriage. Mr. Marriott's mother, grandmother, and aunts translated several of Miss Muhlbach's novels and a volume of French fairy tales. The future novelist first saw Kentucky when he was nine years old, and for the two years following he lived at Louisville and attended a public school. From 1878 to 1882 he was at school in Virginia, but he spent two of the vacations in Louisville. In 1883 he was appointed to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but two years later he was compelled to resign on account of deficient eyesight. He returned to Louisville where he clerked in an insurance[Pg 212] office, the American Mutual Aid Society, which position he held until 1887, when he resigned and removed to Baltimore as an architectural draughtsman. He subsequently went to Washington, and from there to California. In 1890 Mr. Marriott joined the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, and acted as representative of the Associated Press. Two years later he went to South Africa as a correspondent, tramping sixteen hundred miles in the interior, mostly alone. After this strenuous journey he returned to his aunt's home at Louisville, spending some of the time in Shelby county, Kentucky. He shortly afterwards went to New York as ship news reporter for The Tribune, which he held for six months. In 1893 Mr. Marriott went to Brazil for the Associated Press on the dynamite cruiser Nictheroy. The fall of 1894 found him again in Shelby county, this time meeting his future wife, a Louisville girl, whom he married in June, 1895. At the time of his wedding he was a newspaper correspondent in Washington. Mr. Marriott's health broke shortly afterwards, and from January to September, 1896, he was ill at Louisville. In 1897 he went to Cuba for the Chicago Record. When the now defunct Louisville Dispatch was established, Mr. Marriott became telegraph editor, which position he held for six months in 1898. Although he has resided in Washington since leaving the Dispatch, he regards Louisville as his real home, and he has visited there several times within the last few years, his most recent visit being late in 1912, when he came for his sister's wedding. Since 1904 Mr. Marriott has been one of the assistant editors of the publications of the United States Geological Survey. At the present time he is planning to surrender his post and establish a permanent home at Louisville. Mr. Marriott's first book, Uncle Sam's Business (New York, 1908), was an excellent study of our government at work, "told for young Americans." It was followed by[Pg 213] a thrilling, wildly improbable tale of the Sargasso Sea, The Isle of Dead Ships (Philadelphia, 1909), the scene of which he saw several times on his various journeys around the world. How Americans Are Governed in Nation, State, and City (New York, 1910), was an adultiazation and elaboration of his first book, fitting it for institutions of learning and for the general reader. Mr. Marriott's second novel, Out of Russia (Philadelphia, 1911), a story of adventure and intrigue, was somewhat saner than The Isle of Dead Ships. From June to October, 1912, his Sally Castleton, Southerner, a Civil War story, ran in Everybody's Magazine, and it will be issued by the Lippincott's in January, 1913. The love story of a Virginia girl, daughter of a Confederate general, and a Kentuckian, who is a Northern spy, it is far and away the finest thing Mr. Marriott has done—one of the best of the recent war novels. In the past five years he has sold more than one hundred short-stories, some fifteen serials, and his fifth book is now in press, which is certainly a most creditable record. He has published two Kentucky stories, one for Gunter's Magazine, the other for The Pocket Magazine (which periodical was swallowed up by Leslie's Weekly); and he has recently finished a third Kentucky romance, which he calls One Night in Kentucky, and which will appear in The Red Book Magazine sometime in 1913.

Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Marriott to the Author; Who's Who in America, (1912-1913).

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENEMY[53]

[From Sally Castleton, Southerner (Everybody's Magazine, June, 1912)]

With her heart beating so that she could not speak, she opened the door. She knew that she must be calm, must not show too great terror, must not try to deny the enemy the freedom[Pg 214] of the house. She clung to the door, half fainting, while the world spun round her.

Slowly the haze cleared. Dully, as from afar off, she heard some one addressing her and realized that a boy was standing on the porch steps holding his horse's bridle—a boy, short, rotund, friendly looking, with gilt and yellow braid upon his dusty blue uniform; just a boy—not an enemy.

"Well, sir?" she faltered.

The boy snatched off his slouch hat with its yellow cord. He stood swinging it in his hand, staring admiringly at the girls. "General Haverhill's compliments," he said. "He regrets to cause inconvenience, but he must occupy this house as headquarters for a few hours. He will be here immediately." He gestured toward a little knot of horsemen, who had paused at the foot of the lawn and were staring down the valley with field-glasses.

Sally managed to bow with some degree of calmness. "The house is at General Haverhill's disposal," she answered steadily. "I am sorry that I have only one aged servant and therefore cannot serve him as I should."

The boy smiled. He seemed unable to take his eyes from her face. "Oh, that's all right," he exclaimed cheerfully. "We are used to looking out for ourselves. Don't trouble yourself a bit. The general only wants a place to rest for a few hours."

"He may have that," Miss Castleton smiled faintly. After all, there were pleasant people among the Yankees. Besides, it was just as well to conciliate while she could. "In fact, he can have more. Uncle Claban is a famous cook and our pantry is not quite empty. May I offer supper to him and his staff?"

Her tones were quite natural. She felt surprised at her lack of fear; now that the shock of the meeting was over, the danger seemed somehow less.

The subaltern's white teeth flashed. "Really, truly supper at a table, with a table-cloth! It's too good to be true. I'll tell the general." He turned toward the horsemen, who were coming toward the steps.

Sally waited, watching curiously. She felt 'Genie's convulsive grasp on her hand and squeezed back reassuringly. "Don't[Pg 215] be afraid, dear!" she murmured. "They're only men, after all. Try to forget that they are Yankees, and everything will come right." She turned once more to meet her guests.

On all sides of the house the busy scene was rapidly changing. The dusty cavalrymen, saddle-weary after a hard ride, were taking advantage of a few hours' halt. The troopers, gaunt, sun-burned, unshaven, covered with mud and dust, moved about this way and that. Company lines were formed, and long strings of picketed horses munched the clover, while other strings of horses, with a trooper riding bare-back, half a dozen bridles in his hands, clattered toward the creek. Stacked arms glittered in the sunlight. Men with red crosses on their sleeves established a tiny hospital tent and looked to the slightly wounded who had accompanied the flying column. Some of the Castleton fences went for farrier's fires, and his hammer clanked noisily.

The troops were too thoroughly seasoned campaigners to get out of hand, but the officers were as tired as the men, and there was no little foraging. The clusters of cherries, the yellow June apples, and the welcome "garden truck" were temptations not to be wholly resisted.

It was all new and strange to Sally and, hard as it was to see the Castleton acres trampled and overrun, she watched the busy scene with unconscious interest.

The voice of the young officer recalled her to herself. "General Haverhill," he was saying, in deference to a half-forgotten convention. "General Haverhill—Miss—?" He paused interrogatively.

The girl bowed. "I'm Miss Castleton," she said.

"Miss Castleton." The general swept off his slouch hat. "I suppose Lieutenant Rigby here has told you that we must use your house?"

"Yes, general. Will you come in?"

The subaltern interposed. "Miss Castleton has offered us supper, general," he said.

The general smiled. He was a powerful-looking man of forty; the scar of a saber gash across his face gave it a sinister aspect, but his smile was pleasant. "You are—loyal?" he questioned doubtfully. The question seemed unnecessary.

[Pg 216]

"Yes—to Virginia!" Sally met his eyes steadily.

"Oh! I see!" Quizzically he contemplated the girl from under his bushy brows. "And this is—" he turned toward the younger girl.

"My sister, Miss Eugenia Castleton."

"Ah!" The general bowed. "I suppose you, too, are loyal—to Virginia, Miss Eugenia?" he said.

Perhaps it was the patronizing note in the question that touched 'Genie on the raw. Perhaps it was sheer terror. Whatever the cause, she flashed up, suddenly furious. "Oh!" she cried, stamping her small foot. "Oh! I wish I were a man! I wish I were a man!"

The grizzled Federal looked at her steadily, and not without admiration. "Perhaps it's lucky for me you're not," he answered, smiling.

Bowing, he stood aside to let the girls pass at the door, then clanked after them into the cool, wide hall with its broad center-table, its chairs and lounge—the lounge on which Philip Byrd had so lately lain—and the big black stove. To save their lives neither Sally nor her sister could help glancing at that stove.

It was Sally's part to play hostess, and she did it valiantly. "Please sit down, general," she invited. "If you will excuse me, I will see about supper." With a smile she rustled from the room, 'Genie following rather sullenly.

In the wide kitchen she dropped into a chair, trembling. Had she acted her part well, she wondered, or had she overdone it? Was it suspicion that she had seen in the general's eyes as she left him? Would he search—and find? How long would he stay? Philip was wounded, suffering, probably hungry and thirsty. If the Yankees stayed very long, he might have to surrender. What would they do to him? Would they consider him a spy and—and——

A hand clutched her and she looked up. 'Genie was on her knees beside her, flushed, tear-stained face uplifted.

"Oh, Sally, Sally!" she wailed. "Did I do wrong? Did I make him suspect? Oh, if anything happens to Philip through my fault, I'll die!"

[Pg 217]

Sally laid her hand on the bright hair of the girl beside her. "You didn't harm Philip," she comforted. "It wouldn't do for us to be too friendly. That would be the surest way to make them suspicious."

"But—but—he'll starve!"

"Oh, no he won't! I don't think they'll stay long. 'For a few hours,' that young officer said. But come!" Sally jumped up. "Come. Let's get supper for them. That'll give us something to do, and will keep them occupied—when it's ready. Men will always eat. Come!"

'Genie rose obediently, if not submissively. "Supper!" she flashed. "Supper! And we've got to feed those tyrants, with poor Philip starving right under their noses."

The elder sister smiled. "I'm sorry," she said gently; "but there are worse things than missing a meal or two. Perhaps it may be better for him, after all; for he must have some fever after that wound and that ride. Anyhow, we've got to feed these Yankees, so let's do it with a good grace. Men are easiest managed when they've eaten. If we've got to feed the brutes, let's do it."

ABBIE CARTER GOODLOE

Miss Abbie Carter Goodloe, novelist and short-story writer, was born at Versailles, Kentucky, in 1867. In 1883 she was graduated from the Girls' High School, Louisville; and in 1889 she received the degree of Bachelor of Science from Wellesley College. The next two years were spent in studying and traveling in Europe. On her return to the United States Miss Goodloe made her home at Louisville, of which city she has been a resident ever since. Her first book, Antinous (Philadelphia, 1891), a blank verse tragedy, was followed by College Girls (New York, 1895), an entertaining collection of short stories of college life. Miss Goodloe's first novel, Calvert of Strathore[Pg 218] (New York, 1903), was set, for the most part, in the sunny land of France. At the Foot of the Rockies (New York, 1905), a group of short stories, is Miss Goodloe's best work so far. Several of the tales are of great merit and interest, one enthusiastic critic comparing them to Kipling's finest work. The author spent one glorious summer in Alberta, Canada, surrounded by the Northwest Mounted Police, Indians, Englishmen, Americans, and the romance of it all quite possessed her. These were the backgrounds for the eight stories which have won her wider fame than any of her other writings. A winter in Mexico furnished materials for her latest novel, The Star-Gazers (New York, 1910). The reader is presented to the late president of that revolutionary-ridden republic, Porfirio Diaz, together with the other celebrities of his country. The epistolary form of narration is adopted, and the result is not especially noteworthy. In no way does this work rank with At the Foot of the Rockies. The short-story is certainly Miss Goodloe's greatest gift, and in that field she should go far.

Bibliography. Anna Blanche McGill's excellent study in the Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. v); Scribner's Magazine (January, April, 1910; July, 1911).

A COUNTESS OF THE WEST[54]

[From At the Foot of the Rockies (New York, 1905)]

She looked at the Honorable Arthur, abashed and weakly unhappy, and a wave of disgust swept over her. He was so big and stupid and irresolute. She would have liked him better if he had told her with brutal frankness that he no longer cared for her and wouldn't marry her. She had thought him grateful at least, and he wasn't even that. The affection he had inspired in her fell from her like a discarded garment. Suddenly she unfastened a button of her shirtwaist and drew from[Pg 219] around her neck a little blue ribbon on which hung a seal ring. With a jerk she snapped the ribbon and slipped off the ring. She held it out to him.

"There," she said, cooly, "take it back to Rigby Park and give it to some fine English girl whom your father happens to know! I hope you'll enjoy your England. Montana's good enough for me!"

As she swept the Honorable Arthur with a scornful glance, she suddenly saw his jaw drop and a curious look spring into his eyes. Following the direction of his gaze she beheld two riders approaching at a hand gallop, a Mounted Police officer from Fort Macleod, whom she knew, and following briskly in his wake, a handsome Englishman of middle age. The hair about his temples was heavily tinged with white, but his complexion was as fresh and pink and white as a baby's, and he was most immaculately got up in riding things.

"It's the governor," she heard the Honorable Arthur whisper incredulously to himself.

The meeting between the two was cold and formal, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxon male. Miss Ogden looked on in fascinated silence. The Earl of Rigby put up a single eyeglass and surveyed his son.

"By gad, my boy, I'm glad to see you again. You aren't looking any too fit, you know."

"Thanks, father—yes, I know it. When did you get here?"

"Just stepped off the train at Macleod two hours ago. Beastly train."

"Yes, isn't it? Howd'y do, Nevin?"

"Howd'y do, St. John? Howd'y do, Miss Ogden? Haven't seen you for a long while. May—may I—the Earl of Rigby, Miss Ogden."

The Earl of Rigby screwed his glass in again—it had fallen out when he had shaken his son's hand—and stared at the young woman before him.

"Awfully glad to meet you, I'm sure," he said, affably. "I—I had always understood that this country was an Eveless paradise. I'm glad to see I'm mistaken."

Miss Lily Ogden surveyed the Earl of Rigby imperturbably.[Pg 220] Not one of the thrills which an hour before she would have supposed necessarily attendant on an introduction to a noble earl now disturbed her composure. Even his exaggeratedly polite compliment left her perfectly cool. He simply seemed to her an extremely handsome man, a good deal cleverer and stronger-looking than his son.

"This country wouldn't be a paradise at all without Miss Ogden," said Nevin, gallantly. "She's the best horsewoman in Port Highwood and she'll help St. John show you the country, my lord."

"Thanks, Captain Nevin." She smiled on him sweetly, showing the white, even teeth between the scarlet lips, and then she turned to the Earl of Rigby. "I shall be delighted to show you the country—specially as Mr. St. John is obliged to go away in two or three days."

"I should like nothing better," said the earl, with conviction.

"Have to go on the round-up," murmured the Honorable Arthur.

"That's hard luck," said Nevin, sympathetically. "Two weeks, I suppose."

"Yes—father'll have to stop for a bit at the Highwood House. I fancy he'll wish he were back in England!"

"Not if Miss Ogden will ride with me," observed the earl.

A curious light came into the girl's gray eyes.

"I could show your lordship a new trail every day for the two weeks, and at the end of the time I am sure you could not decide which to call the prettiest," she asserted.

"I dare say," assented the earl, eagerly; "but I would like to try."

"Oh, Miss Ogden will take good care of you," said Nevin. "And now, as you have two guides, if you will excuse me, I think I won't go on into Highwood. Your lordship's things will be sent over early in the morning. His lordship was so anxious to see you, St. John, that we couldn't even persuade him to mess with us to-night," he remarked, jocularly, to the Honorable Arthur. "And now I will turn back, I think. Good-bye!" He waved a gauntleted hand, and wheeling his horse set off at an easy canter for the fort.

[Pg 221]

A somewhat awkward constraint fell upon the three so left, which Miss Ogden dispelled by turning her horse toward Highwood, and riding on slightly ahead of the Honorable Arthur and his father. The earl gazed admiringly at her slim back.

"By gad, she's a beauty, Arthur, my deah boy, and she sits her horse perfectly."

"She's an American," remarked the young man, aggressively.

"She's beautiful enough to be English," retorted the earl, warmly. He spurred forward and rode at her right hand. The Honorable Arthur rather sulkily closed up on the left.

"I was just saying to Arthur, Miss Ogden, that he could go on the round-up and jolly welcome as long as you have promised to show me the country. I am most deeply interested in our Canadian possessions, you know," said the earl.

She shot him a glance from under the black lashes of her gray eyes which made the Earl of Rigby fairly gasp.

"I shall try my best to keep your lordship from being bored while Mr. St. John is away," she said, sweetly.

It was two weeks later, or to be perfectly exact, two weeks and four days later, that a half-breed was sent down to the Morgan round-up, twenty-five miles west of Calgary, with a telegram for St. John. The Honorable Arthur was so dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt that the half-breed had difficulty in picking him out from the rest of the dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt round-up crew.

The sight of the telegram filled the young man with an indefinable fear, and the paper fluttered in his trembling hand like a withered leaf on a windshaken bough.

"Meet the 2:40 from Macleod at Calgary. Will be on train. Most important.

Rigby."

His swollen tongue and parched lips got drier, his cracked and tanned skin paled as he read and reread the message. Suddenly a joyous thought came to him. "The old boy's relented sure, and wants me to go back with him," he told himself over and over. He thrust his few things into the one portmanteau he had brought with him and made such good time going the twenty-five miles into Calgary that he had been pacing up and down[Pg 222] the station platform for ten minutes when the train pulled in.

The Earl of Rigby, who had been hanging over the vestibule rail of the observation car, swung himself lightly down and cordially grasped his son's hand. The Honorable Arthur was struck afresh by the good looks and youthfulness of his aristocratic father.

"By Jove, Arthur, I'm glad to see you got my telegram, and I'm glad you got here in time. What? No, you won't need your portmanteau. The truth is," he gave an infectious laugh, "the Countess of Rigby—she was Miss Lily Ogden until last night, my deah boy—and I are on our way to England, and we couldn't leave the country without seeing you again. Won't you step into the coach and speak to her?"

GEORGE LEE BURTON

George Lee Burton, magazinest, was born at Danville, Kentucky, April 17, 1868. He was fitted at the Louisville Rugby School for the University of Virginia, from which he was graduated, after which he returned to Louisville, and studied law in the University of Louisville. Upon his graduation from that institution he was admitted to the bar, and he has since practiced his profession at Louisville with success. Mr. Burton began to write some years ago, contributing short-stories and sketches to the eastern periodicals. The Century published his clever story, As Seen By His Bride; and Ainslee's Magazine printed his The Training of the Groom, The Deferred Proposal, Cupid's Impromptu, and several other stories. His work for The Saturday Evening Post, however, has been his most noteworthy performance. For that great weekly he has written: Getting a Start at Sixty (published anonymously); The Making of a Small Capitalist, A Fresh Grip, A Rebuilt Life, and Tackling Matrimony, the last of which titles appeared in two parts[Pg 223] in The Post for November 23 and November 30, 1912, was exceedingly well done. He has recently re-written Tackling Matrimony, greatly developing the story-part, and more than doubling its length, for the Harper's, who will issue it in book form early in the spring of 1913. Mr. Burton is a bachelor who has won wide reputation as a writer upon various phases of matrimonial mixups. He also has a certain sympathy with those who waste their youth in riotous living, but who win their true positions in the world after all seems lost.

Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Burton to the Author; Outing (May, 1900).

AFTER PRISON—HOME[55]

[From A Rebuilt Life (Saturday Evening Post, March 23, 1912)]

"Well, sir, when I got out I was shipped back to my own town, or rather the town from which I had been sent up. I was born five hundred miles from there; but my people had died when I was young and I had drifted in there when I was only sixteen years old—I guess that makes it my town after all. Now, at thirty-five I was back there from the pen and I stayed there.

"Maybe that was a mistake. I guess it was harder for me; but I had that much fight left in me. I wanted to show people that there was still some man in me, even if I had spent ten years in the pen that I deserved to spend there. Besides, I wouldn't like to start off fresh in a new place and build up a little, and just as I got to going have somebody from my home town come along and tell everybody that respected me that I was a murderer and an ex-convict and a lowdown sort of nobody.

"I believe after all I'd rather start in as I did, back where they thought that about me to begin with, and build up fresh from that. I wanted to live down the killing and those ten years—and I believe I've sorter done it. It may sound foolish,[Pg 224] but—though I don't excuse all that, remember—I have got to sorter respect myself again, and I tell you it feels good!

"They didn't have prison reform in that state then, with an employment officer and a job all ready to help a poor devil start out again when he got back to freedom. They gave me a suit of clothes and five dollars and shipped me back to the town I came from, then turned me loose as an ex-convict to hump for myself like the other "exes," branded by those years of living in there.

"It certainly seemed strange to see the place again. There had been many changes in those years. I put up at one of these twenty-five-cents-a-night men's hotels, and took fifteen-cent meals—skipping one every day to make my five dollars last longer; and I commenced looking for a job.

"There didn't seem any need of more help anywhere. I tried many of my old acquaintances to see if I could get a place—I did not seem to have any friends left! I found ten years in the pen seemed to wipe out the claim of being even an acquaintance with most of them. They all looked at me curiously, as if I was a different brand of man—a cannibal, or Eskimo, or something.

"I'd rather they wouldn't have showed so plain they thought me dangerous or worse; yet I'd have swallowed that if they had only given me work. They didn't though; some of them weren't as cold with me as others, but none of them had anything for me.

"Of course I tackled all sorts of strangers, too, for work; but usually they didn't have any—and when they had they wanted references. I couldn't blame them; I guess I had a sort of pasty face and hangdog look.

"They had such a habit of asking: 'Where did you work last?'

"'I've been away a long time—have not worked here for several years,' I would say.

"'Where did you work while you were away?' came next.

"'I worked at broom-making part of the time,' I got to answering.

"Then, like as not, the boss would look at me suspiciously and say: 'No, I don't believe I need you just now; if I do I will let you know. Where do you live?"

[Pg 225]

"When I gave the number of the bum lodging house he would look as if that settled it; he had known all along I wasn't any good. And I felt so shamed and low down all the time I looked like he was right.

"Five dollars don't last very long, even with two meals a day. I got work one day on a wrecker's force, tearing down an old building; but the foreman drove his men hard and I wasn't used to real work anyway. I couldn't stand up to it, and—I'm ashamed to tell it even now—I fainted about four o'clock that afternoon.

"Another day I got a place with the gang working repairs on the street-railroad tracks; but the man in charge said I was too slow and not strong enough—had better get some different kind of work. As if I hadn't tried everything I could! He didn't pay me for a full day either—said I wasn't worth it; and the worst was that I knew he was right. I was about at the end of my rope when my money gave out, and I was looking so weak and shamefaced that I didn't stand any sort of a chance. I got to feeling desperate.

"I remember that about this time I went in to answer an ad—'Man wanted as porter in well-established wholesale drug house.' The head of the place was a mild-mannered old man, who sat in the back office, but who always looked over the new men before they were employed. He began as usual:

"'Where did you work last?'

"'With the street-railroad gang,' I answered.

"'U-um! How long?'

"'One day,' I told him.

"'Ah!' he said, as if he had discovered something—'and before that?'

"'With a house-wrecking gang on Flint Street.'

"'Yes—how long there?'

"'Part of a day,' I said. 'I couldn't stand up to the work.'

"I thought he looked a little sympathetic then, but was not sure until he sniffed and asked the next question in a hard, thin voice:

"'And where before that?'

"I hesitated a moment; he looked at me more closely and said in that same tone:

[Pg 226]

"'Where?'

"I had been looked at and questioned so much that way and had got so raw about it that now I almost shouted: 'In the penitentiary!'

"'Why, bless my soul!' the mild little man gasped. 'No, I don't need you. Good day! Good day!'

"He looked so shocked and I felt so desperate that I could not help adding, while I looked at him hard:

"'I was put in for manslaughter too—voluntary manslaughter!'

"There wasn't any clerk in the room at the time.

"Oh, oh, indeed!' he gulped out, rising and backing away, big-eyed and trembly. He almost got to the back window before I turned and left.

"Maybe I didn't feel bitter and like 'what's the use—what's the use of anything!' I don't know what would have happened—I guess I'd have starved to death or worse—if it hadn't been for the hoboes' hotel—Welcome Hall—'Headquarters for the Unemployed,' as it's advertised.

"You don't know about the place? Well, sir, it's a dandy!—at least, that's the way I think about it—and a good many others do too. The worst of the hoboes won't go there if they can help it—they'd rather bum a dime and get a bed for the night in one of those ten-cent places.

"This Welcome Hall is a sort of industrial kindling-splitting joint. You blow in there and saw and split kindling for a bed and meals—you give them six hours' work.

"You see, in that way you can live off six hours' work a day and have some time left to look for a job. It's a good thing, and it's been a moneymaker too; it's the only charity I know of that's not a charity but a moneymaking concern. Of course people had to give it a place and start it; but it more than pays expenses, and at the same time helps to build up a man instead of making him a pauper or a deadbeat bum.

"I certainly was glad to find some place where I could at least earn my lodging and meals. I rested up some there and was glad I could just stay somewhere. Though I looked about for work a little, nearly every day, I lived along there for three[Pg 227] weeks on my six hours a day of work—still out of a job. At last I guess my fighting blood got up again, I determined I would get a job of some kind, even if it was cleaning vaults. I decided no honest work was beneath me when it all seemed so far above me as to be out of reach.

"'If I keep my eyes open and am not too choosy I must find something to do,' I said to myself, and set out to look for it in earnest. It was Saturday morning, I remember, for I thought of the next day being Sunday, when I could not even hunt for work. I had walked a good way and asked for work at a lot of places without getting anything to do, when I saw an old negro man sweeping leaves off the sidewalk and washing off the front steps of a plain two-story house with a bucket of water and a cloth.

"'I may not be much account but I sure can do that,' I thought, and asked him how much he got for it.

"'For dese here, boss, I gits ten cents; but when I wuks all de way roun' to de back do' I gits some dinner th'owed in,' he said with a grin.

"That wasn't so bad; and 'boss'!—how good that sounded! I went on down the street feeling almost like a man again and not a down-and-out ex-convict.

"About a square away I began to ask at every house if they didn't want the leaves swept off and the front steps washed. Maybe I looked too much like a tramp or too much above one with that 'boss' still ringing in my ears—the first time I had been spoken to that way for more than ten years! Anyway I got turned down at first.

"At the tenth place, however, a two-story-and-attic red brick, they gave me a job. The woman asked me in a sharp voice, as if she were defending herself from being overcharged:

"'How much?'

"'Ten cents,' I answered, as meekly as I could.

"She seemed to think that was reasonable; and after waiting a minute, as if she wanted the work done and couldn't find any excuse for not letting me do it, she handed me a bucket and mop and broom and set me at it.

"I finished the job in about an hour; and I tell you I enjoyed[Pg 228] that work! Beneath me? Why, it couldn't get beneath me—I was that low down in mind and living and even hope. I was just about all in, you understand; and I wasn't a plumb out-and-out fool.

"I have got that dime yet; see here," he said, holding out a brightly polished dime surrounded by a narrow gold band, which he wore as a charm on his watch-chain; "whenever I begin to feel ashamed of my work I look at that and get thankful, and remember how proud and happy I felt when that sharp-looking woman handed it to me. I had done a little extra work in cleaning up the yard, and she said as she gave it to me:

"'That looks a whole lot better! You certainly earned that dime.'

"I wouldn't have spent that money if I had had to go without food for two days! It seemed to put springs in my feet and I went down the street hustling for another job of the same kind. I found it before dinner; it was another ten cent job with twenty cents' worth of work; but I sure was glad to get it.

"I felt that, so long as Welcome Hall was making money, I was earning my way by those six hours of work a day, and I stayed on there for some time longer."

JAMES TANDY ELLIS

James Tandy Ellis, "Shawn's" father, was born at Ghent, Kentucky, June 9, 1868. He spent his boyhood days in one of the most romantically beautiful sections of Kentucky, on the Ohio river between Cincinnati and Louisville. He was educated at Ghent College and the State College of Kentucky at Lexington. Mr. Ellis has always been a great lover of Nature and his leisure-hours are usually spent with dog and gun or in angling. He engaged in newspaper work in Louisville and his character sketches soon made him well-known throughout the State. His first book, Poems by Ellis (Louisville, Kentucky,[Pg 229] 1898), contained some very clever verse. Sprigs o' Mint (New York, 1906), was an attractive little volume of pastels in prose and verse. Mr. Ellis next issued three pamphlets: Peebles (Carrollton, Kentucky, 1908); Awhile in the Mountains (Lexington, Kentucky, 1909); and Kentucky Stories (Lexington, 1909). His latest book, entitled Shawn of Skarrow (Boston, 1911), is a novelette of river life in northern Kentucky, and the simple, direct manner of the little tale was found "refreshing" by the "jaded" reviewers. Colonel Ellis is now assistant Adjutant-General of Kentucky, and he resides at Frankfort, the capitol of the Commonwealth.

Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Ellis to the Author; Lexington Leader (December 24, 1911).

YOUTHFUL LOVERS[56]

[From Shawn of Skarrow (Boston, 1911)]

The winter had passed away. Shawn had been working hard in school, and under the encouragement of Mrs. Alden, was making fair progress, but Sunday afternoons found him in his rowboat, wandering about the stream and generally pulling his boat out on the beach at Old Meadows, for Lallite was there to greet him, and already they had told each other of their love. What a dream of happiness, to wander together along the pebbled beach, or through the upland woods, tell each other the little incidents of their daily life, and to pledge eternal fidelity. Oh, dearest days, when the rose of love first blooms in youthful hearts, when lips breathe the tenderest promises, fraught with such transports of delight; when each lingering word grows sweeter under the spell of love-lit eyes. Oh, blissful elysium of love's young dream!

They stood together in the deepening twilight, when the sun's last bars of gold were reflected in the stream.

[Pg 230]

"Oh, Shawn, it was a glad day when you first came with Doctor Hissong to hunt."

"Yes," said Shawn, as he took her hand, "and it was a hunt where I came upon unexpected game, but how could you ever feel any love for a poor river-rat?"

"I don't know," said Lallite, "but maybe, it is that kind that some girls want to fall in love with, especially if they have beautiful teeth, and black eyes and hair, and can be unselfish enough to kill a bag of game for two old men, and let them think they did the shooting."

"Lally, when they have love plays on the show-boats, they have all sorts of quarrels and they lie and cuss and tear up things generally."

"Well, Shawn, there's all sorts of love, I suppose, but mine is not the show-boat kind."

"Thank the Lord," said Shawn.

He drew out a little paste-board box. Nestling in a wad of cotton, was the pearl given to him by Burney.

"Lally, this is the only thing I have ever owned in the way of jewelry, and it's not much, but will you take it and wear it for my sake?"

"It will always be a perfect pearl to me," said the blushing girl.

GEORGE HORACE LORIMER

George Horace Lorimer, editor and novelist, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, October 6, 1868, the son of Dr. George C. Lorimer (1838-1904), the distinguished Baptist clergyman and author, who held pastorates at Harrodsburg (where he married a wife), Paducah, and Louisville, but who won his widest reputation in Tremont Temple, Boston. His son was educated at Colby College and at Yale. Since Saint Patrick's Day of 1899, Mr. Lorimer has been editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post.[Pg 231] He resides with his family at Wyncote, Pennsylvania, but he may be more often found near the top of the magnificent new building of the Curtis Publishing Company in Independence Square. As an author Mr. Lorimer is known for his popular Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son (Boston, 1902), which was one of the "six best sellers" for a long time. It was actually translated into Japanese. Its sequel, Old Gorgon Graham (New York, 1904), was more letters from the same to the same. The original of Old Gorgon Graham was none other than Philip Danforth Armour, the Chicago packer, under whom Mr. Lorimer worked for several years. Both of the books made a powerful appeal to men, but it is doubtful if many women cared for either of them. The False Gods (New York, 1906), is a newspaper story in which "the false gods" are the faithless flares which lead a "cub" reporter into many mixups, only to have everything turn out happily in the end. Mr. Lorimer's latest story, Jack Spurlock—Prodigal (New York, 1908), an adventurous young fellow who is expelled from Harvard, defies his father, and finds himself in the maw of a cold and uncongenial world, is deliciously funny—for the reader! All of Mr. Lorimer's books are full of the Poor Richard brand of worldly-wise philosophy, which he is in the habit of "serving up" weekly for the readers of The Post. That he is certainly an editor of very great ability, and that he has exerted wide influence in his field, no one will gainsay. The men who help him make his paper call him "the greatest editor in America;" and he is undoubtedly the highest salaried one in this country to-day. The Post, which was nothing before he assumed control of it, is one of the foremost weeklies in the English-reading world at the present time; and its success is due to the longheadedness and hard common sense of its editor, George Horace Lorimer.

[Pg 232]

Bibliography. The Critic (June, 1903); The Bookman (October, November, 1904); Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have Written Famous Books, by E. F. Harkins (Boston, 1903, Second Series).

HIS SON'S SWEETHEART[57]

[From Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son (Boston, 1902)]

New York, November 4, 189-.

Dear Pierrepont: Who is this Helen Heath, and what are your intentions there? She knows a heap more about you than she ought to know if they're not serious, and I know a heap less about her than I ought to know if they are. Hadn't got out of sight of land before we'd become acquainted somehow, and she's been treating me like a father clear across the Atlantic. She's a mighty pretty girl, and a mighty nice girl, and a mighty sensible girl—in fact she's so exactly the sort of girl I'd like to see you marry that I'm afraid there's nothing in it.

Of course, your salary isn't a large one yet, but you can buy a whole lot of happiness with fifty dollars a week when you have the right sort of a woman for your purchasing agent. And while I don't go much on love in a cottage, love in a flat, with fifty a week as a starter, is just about right, if the girl is just about right. If she isn't, it doesn't make any special difference how you start out, you're going to end up all wrong.

Money ought never to be the consideration in marriage, but it ought always to be a consideration. When a boy and a girl don't think enough about money before the ceremony, they're going to have to think altogether too much about it after; and when a man's doing sums at home evenings, it comes kind of awkward for him to try to hold his wife on his lap.

There's nothing in this talk that two can live cheaper than one. A good wife doubles a man's expenses and doubles his happiness, and that's a pretty good investment if a fellow's got the money to invest. I have met women who had cut their husbands' expenses in half, but they needed the money because[Pg 233] they had doubled their own. I might add, too, that I've met a good many husbands who had cut their wives' expenses in half, and they fit naturally into any discussion of our business, because they are hogs. There's a point where economy becomes a vice, and that's when a man leaves its practice to his wife.

An unmarried man is a good deal like a piece of unimproved real estate—he may be worth a whole lot of money, but he isn't of any particular use except to build on. The great trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they're "made land," and if you dig down a few feet you strike ooze and booze under the layer of dollars that their daddies dumped in on top. Of course, the only way to deal with a proposition of that sort is to drive forty-foot piles clear down to solid rock and then to lay railroad iron and cement till you've got something to build on. But a lot of women will go right ahead without any preliminaries and wonder what's the matter when the walls begin to crack and tumble about their ears.

SISTER IMELDA

Sister Imelda ("Estelle Marie Gerard"), poet, was born at Jackson, Tennessee, January 17, 1869, the daughter of Charles Brady, a native of Ireland, and soldier in the Confederate army. After the war he went to Jackson, Tennessee, and married Miss Ann Sharpe, a kinswoman of Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi. Their second child was Helen Estelle Brady, the future poet. She was educated by the Dominican sisters at Jackson and, at the age of eighteen years, entered the sisterhood, taking the name of "Sister Imelda." For the next twenty-three years she lived in Kentucky, teaching music in Roman Catholic institutions at Louisville and Springfield, but she is now connected with the Sacred Heart Institute,[Pg 234] Watertown, Massachusetts. Sister Imelda's booklet of poems has been highly praised by competent critics. It was entitled Heart Whispers (1905), and issued under her pen-name of "Estelle Marie Gerard." Many of these poems were first published in The Midland Review, a Louisville magazine edited by the late Charles J. O'Malley, the poet and critic. Sister Imelda is a woman of rare culture and a real singer, but her strict religious life has hampered her literary labors to an unusual degree.

Bibliography. The Hesperian Tree (Columbus, Ohio, 1903); letters from Sister Imelda to the Author.

A JUNE IDYL[58]

[From Heart Whispers (1905)]

[Pg 235]

HEART MEMORIES

[From the same]

A NUN'S PRAYER

[From the same]