Chapter XVI: Introduction (14)

IF Mrs. Burnett were not a native of England, she might be called a typical American woman. As all Americans, however, are descended at very few removes from foreign ancestors, it may, nevertheless, be said of the young English girl, who crossed the ocean with her widowed mother at the age of sixteen, that she has shown all the pluck, energy and perseverance usually thought of as belonging to Americans. She settled with her mother and sisters on a Tennessee farm; but soon began to write short stories, the first of which was published in a Philadelphia magazine in 1867. Her first story to achieve popularity was “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s,” published in “Scribner’s Magazine” in 1877. It is a story of a daughter of a miner, the father a vicious character, whose neglect and abuse render all the more remarkable the virtue and real refinement of the daughter. Mrs. Burnett delights in heroes and heroines whose characters contrast strongly with their circumstances, and in some of her stories, especially in “A Lady of Quality,” published in 1895, she even verges on the sensational.

In 1873 Miss Hodgson was married to Doctor Burnett, of Knoxville, Tennessee. After a two years’ tour in Europe, they took up their residence in the city of Washington, where they have since lived.

Mrs. Burnett’s longest novel, “Through One Administration,” is a story of the political and social life of the Capital. “Pretty Polly Pemberton,” “Esmeralda,” “Louisiana,” “A Fair Barbarian,” and “Haworth’s” are, after those already mentioned, her most popular stories. “That Lass o’ Lowrie’s” has been dramatized. Mrs. Hodgson is most widely known, however, by her Children Stories, the most famous of which, “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” appeared as a serial in “St. Nicholas” in 1886, and has since been dramatized and played in both England and America.

Since 1885 her health has not permitted her to write so voluminously as she had previously done, but she has, nevertheless, been a frequent contributor to periodicals. Some of her articles have been of an auto-biographical nature, and her story “The One I Knew Best of All” is an account of her life. She is very fond of society and holds a high place in the social world. Her alert imagination and her gift of expression have enabled her to use her somewhat limited opportunity of observation to the greatest advantage, as is shown in her successful interpretation of the Lancashire dialect and the founding of the story of Joan Lowrie on a casual glimpse, during a visit to a mining village, of a beautiful young woman followed by a cursing and abusive father.

* * * * *

PRETTY POLLY P.¹

FROM “PRETTY POLLY PEMBERTON.”

¹ Copyright, T. B. Peterson & Bros.

“FRAMLEIGH,” ventured little Popham, “you haven’t spoken for half an hour, by Jupiter!”

Framleigh――Captain Gaston Framleigh, of the Guards――did not move. He had been sitting for some time before the window, in a position more noticeable for ease than elegance, with his arms folded upon the back of his chair; and he did not disturb himself, when he condescended to reply to his youthful admirer and ally.

“Half an hour?” he said, with a tranquil half-drawl, which had a touch of affectation in its coolness, and yet was scarcely pronounced enough to be disagreeable, or even unpleasant. “Haven’t I?”

“No, you have not,” returned Popham, encouraged by the negative amiability of his manner. “I am sure it is half an hour. What’s up?”

“Up?” still half-abstractedly. “Nothing! Fact is, I believe I have been watching a girl!”

Little Popham sprang down, for he had been sitting on the table, and advanced toward the window, hurriedly, holding his cigar in his hand.

“A girl!” he exclaimed. “Where? What sort of a girl?”

“As to sort,” returned Framleigh, “I don’t know the species. A sort of girl I never saw before. But, if you wait, you may judge for yourself. She will soon be out there in the garden again. She has been darting in and out of the house for the last twenty minutes.”

“Out of the house?” said Popham, eagerly, “Do you mean the house opposite?”

“Yes.”

“By Jupiter!” employing his usual mild expletive, “look here, old fellow, had she a white dress on, and geranium-colored bows, and――”

“Yes,” said Framleigh. “And she is rather tall for such a girl; and her hair is cut, on her round white forehead, Sir Peter Lely fashion (they call it banging, I believe), and she gives you the impression, at first, of being all eyes, great dark eyes, with――”

“Long, curly, black lashes,” interpolated Popham, with enthusiasm. “By Jupiter! I thought so! It’s pretty Polly P.”

He was so evidently excited that Framleigh looked up with a touch of interest, though he was scarcely a man of enthusiasm himself.

“Pretty Polly P.!” he repeated. “Rather familiar mode of speech, isn’t it? Who is pretty Polly P.?”

Popham, a good-natured, sensitive little fellow, actually colored.

“Well,” he admitted, somewhat confusedly, “I dare say it does sound rather odd, to people who don’t know her; but I can assure you, Framleigh, though it is the name all our fellows seem to give her with one accord, I am sure there is not one of them who means it to appear disrespectful, or――or even cheeky,” resorting, in desperation, to slang. “She is not the sort of a girl a fellow would ever be disrespectful to, even though she is such a girl――so jolly and innocent. For my part, you know, I’d face a good deal, and give up a good deal any day, for pretty Polly P.; and I’m only one of a many.”

Framleigh half smiled, and then looked out of the window again, in the direction of the house opposite.

“Daresay,” he commented, placidly. “And very laudably, too. But you have not told me what the letter P. is intended to signify. ‘Pretty Polly P.’ is agreeable and alliterative, but indefinite. It might mean Pretty Polly Popham.”

“I wish it did, by Jupiter!” cordially, and with more color; “but it does not. It means Pemberton?”

“Pemberton!” echoed Framleigh, with an intonation almost savoring of disgust. “You don’t mean to say she is that Irish fellow’s daughter?”

“She is his niece,” was the answer, “and that amounts to the same thing, in her case. She has lived with old Pemberton ever since she was four years old, and she is as fond of him as if he was a woman, and her mother; and he is as fond of her as if she was his daughter; but he couldn’t help that. Every one is fond of her.”

“Ah!” said Framleigh. “I see. As you say, ‘She is the sort of girl.’”

“There she is, again!” exclaimed Popham, suddenly.

And there she was, surely enough, and they had a full view of her, geranium-colored bows and all. She seemed to be a trifle partial to the geranium-colored bows. Not too partial, however, for they were very nicely put on. Here and there, down the front of her white morning dress, one prettily adjusted on the side of her hair, one on each trim, slim, black kid slipper. If they were a weakness of hers, they were by no means an inartistic one. And as she came down the garden-walk, with a little flower-pot in her hands――a little earthen-pot, with some fresh gloss-leaved little plant in it――she was pleasant to look at, pretty Polly P.――very pleasant; and Gaston Framleigh was conscious of the fact.

It was only a small place, the house opposite and the garden was the tiniest of gardens, being only a few yards of ground, surrounded by iron railings. Indeed, it might have presented anything but an attractive appearance, had pretty Polly P. not so crowded it with bright blooms. Its miniature-beds were full of brilliantly-colored flowers, blue-eyed lobelia, mignonette, scarlet geraniums, a thrifty rose or so, and numerous nasturtiums, with ferns, and much pleasant, humble greenery. There were narrow boxes of flowers upon every window-ledge, a woodbine climbed round the door, and, altogether, it was a very different place from what it might have been, under different circumstances.

And down the graveled path, in the midst of all this flowery brightness, came Polly with her plant to set out, looking not unlike a flower herself. She was very busy in a few minutes, and she went about her work almost like an artist, flourishing her little trowel, digging a nest for her plant, and touching it, when she transplanted it, as tenderly as if it had been a day-old baby. She was so earnest about it, that, before very long, Framleigh was rather startled by hearing her begin to whistle, softly to herself, and, seeing that the sound had grated upon him, Popham colored and ♦laughed half-apologetically.

♦ ‘langhed’ replaced with ‘laughed’

“It is a habit of hers,” he said. “She hardly knows when she does it. She often does things other girls would think strange. But she is not like other girls.”

Framleigh made no reply. He remained silent, and simply looked at the girl. He was not in the most communicative of moods, this morning; he was feeling gloomy and depressed, and not a little irritable, as he did, now and then. He had good reason, he thought, to give way to these fits of gloom, occasionally; they were not so much an unamiable habit as his enemies fancied; he had some ground for them, though he was not prone to enter into particulars concerning it. Certainly he never made innocent little Popham, “Lambkin Popham,” as one of his fellow-officers had called him, in a brilliant moment, his confidant. He liked the simple, affectionate little fellow, and found his admiration soothing; but the time had not yet arrived, when the scales not yet having fallen from his eyes, he could read such guileless, almost insignificant problems as “Lambkin” Popham clearly.

So his companion, only dimly recognizing the outward element of his mood, thought it signified a distaste for that soft, scarcely unfeminine, little piping of pretty Polly’s, and felt bound to speak a few words in her favor.

“She is not a masculine sort of a girl at all, Framleigh,” he said. “You would be sure to like her. The company fairly idolize her.”

“Company!” echoed Framleigh. “What company?”

“Old Buxton’s company,” was the reply. “The theatrical lot at the Prince’s, you know, where she acts.”

Framleigh had been bending forward, to watch Polly patting the mould daintily, as she bent over her flower-bed; but he drew back at this, conscious of experiencing a shock, far stronger and more disagreeable than the whistling had caused him to feel.

“An actress!” he exclaimed, in an annoyed tone.

“Yes, and she works hard enough, too, to support herself, and help old Pemberton,” gravely.

“The worse for her,” with impatience. “And the greater rascal old Pemberton, for allowing it.”

It was just at this moment that Polly looked up. She raised her eyes carelessly to their window, and doing so, caught sight of them both. Young Popham blushed gloriously, after his usual sensitive fashion, and she recognized him at once. She did not blush at all herself, however; she just gave him an arch little nod, and a delightful smile, which showed her pretty white teeth.

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MARY NOAILLES MURFREE.

(CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.)

_Author of the “Prophet of the Smoky Mountains.”_

THE pen name of Charles Egbert Craddock has become familiarly known throughout the English-speaking world in connection with the graphic delineations of character in the East Tennessee Mountains, to which theme the writings of this talented author have been devoted. Until long after the name had become famous the writer was supposed to be a man, and the following amusing story is told of the way in which the secret leaked out. Her works were published by a Boston editor, and the heavy black handwriting, together with the masculine ring of her stories, left no suspicion that their author was a delicate woman. Thomas Baily Aldrich, who was editor of the “Atlantic Monthly,” to which her writings came, used to say, after an interval had elapsed subsequent to her last contribution, “I wonder if Craddock has taken in his winter supply of ink and can let me have a serial.” One day a card came to Mr. Aldrich bearing the well-known name in the well-known writing, and the editor rushed out to greet his old contributor, expecting to see a rugged Tennessee mountaineer. When the slight, delicate little woman arose to answer his greeting it is said that Mr. Aldrich put his hands to his face and simply spun round on his heels without a word, absolutely bewildered with astonishment.

Miss Murfree was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1850, and is the great-granddaughter of Colonel Hardy Murfree of Revolutionary fame, for whom the city of Murfreesboro was named. Her father was a lawyer and a literary man, and Mary was carefully educated. Unfortunately in her childhood a stroke of paralysis made her lame for life. After the close of the war, the family being left in destitute circumstances, they moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and Miss Murfree contributed largely to their pecuniary aid by her fruitful pen. Her volumes include “In the Tennessee Mountains” (1884), “Where the Battle was Fought” (1884), “Down the Ravine” (1885), “The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains” (1885), “In the Clouds” (1886), “The Story of Keedon Bluffs” (1887), “The Despot of Broomsedge Cove” (1888), all of which works have proven their popularity by a long-continued sale, and her subsequent works will no doubt achieve equal popularity. She has contributed much matter to the leading magazines of the day. She is a student of humanity and her portraitures of Tennessee mountaineers have great historic value aside from the entertainment they furnish to the careless reader. It is her delineation of mountain character and her description of mountain scenery that have placed her works so prominently to the front in this critical and prolific age of novels. “Her style,” says a recent reviewer, “is bold, full of humor, yet as delicate as a bit of lace, to which she adds great power of plot and a keen wit, together with a homely philosophy bristling with sparkling truths. For instance, “the little old woman who sits on the edge of a chair” in one of her novels, and remarks “There ain’t nothin’ so becomin’ to fools as a shet mouth,” has added quite an original store to America’s already proverbial literature.

* * * * *

THE CONFESSION.¹

(FROM “THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS.”)

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

THE congregation composed itself to listen to the sermon. There was an expectant pause. Kelsey remembered ever after the tumult of emotion with which he stepped forward to the table and opened the book. He turned to the New Testament for his text,――and the leaves with a familiar hand. Some ennobling phase of that wonderful story which would touch the tender, true affinity of human nature for the higher things,――from this he would preach to-day. And yet, at the same moment, with a contrariety of feeling from which he shrank aghast, there was sulking into his mind that gruesome company of doubts. In double file they came: fate and free agency, free-will and fore-ordination, infinite mercy and infinite justice, God’s loving kindness and man’s intolerable misery, redemption and damnation. He had evolved them all from his own unconscious logical faculty, and they pursued him as if he had, in some spiritual necromancy, conjured up a devil――nay, a legion of devils. Perhaps if he had known how they had assaulted the hearts of men in times gone past; how they had been combated and baffled, and yet have risen and pursued again; how in the scrutiny of science and research men have passed before their awful presence, analyzed them, philosophized about them, and found them interesting; how others, in the levity of the world, having heard of them, grudged the time to think upon them,――if he had known all this, he might have felt some courage in numbers. As it was, there was no fight left in him. He closed the book with a sudden impulse, “My frien’s,” he said, “I stan’ not hyar ter preach ter day, but fur confession.”

There was a galvanic start among the congregation, then intense silence.

“I hev los’ my faith!” he cried out, with a poignant despair. “God ez’ gin it――ef thear is a God――he’s tuk it away. You-uns kin go on. You-uns kin b’lieve. Yer paster b’lieves, an’ he’ll lead ye ter grace,――leastwise ter a better life. But fur me thar’s the nethermost depths of hell, ef”――how his faith and his unfaith now tried him!――“ef thar be enny hell. Leastwise――Stop, brother,” he held up his hand in deprecation, for Parson Tobin had risen at last, and with a white, scared face. Nothing like this had ever been heard in all the length and breadth of the Great Smoky Mountains. “Bear with me a little; ye’ll see me hyar no more. Fur me thar is shame, ah! an’ trial, ah! an’ doubt, ah! an’ despair, ah! The good things o’ heaven air denied. My name is ter be er byword an’ a reproach ’mongst ye. Ye’ll grieve ez ye hev ever learn the Word from me, ah! Ye’ll be held in derision! An’ I hev hed trials,――none like them es air comin’, comin’ down the wind. I hev been a man marked fur sorrow, an’ now fur shame.” He stood erect; he looked bold, youthful. The weight of his secret, lifted now, had been heavier than he knew. In his eyes shone that strange light which was frenzy or prophecy, or inspiration; in his voice rang a vibration they had never before heard. “I will go forth from ’mongst ye,――I that am not of ye. Another shall gird me an’ carry me where I would not. Hell an’ the devil hev prevailed agin me. Pray fur me, brethren, ez I cannot pray fur myself. Pray that God may yet speak ter me――speak from out o’ the whirlwind.”

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ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.

AUTHOR OF “GATES AJAR!”

THIS is said to be a practical age and there is much talk about the materialistic tendencies of the time and the absorption of the people in affairs of purely momentary and transient importance. It is nevertheless true that the books which attract the most attention are the most widely read, and best beloved are those which deal with the great questions of life and of eternity. It was upon “The Gates Ajar” that Elizabeth Stuart Phelps founded her reputation. It dealt entirely with the questions of the future life treating them in a way remarkably fresh and vigorous, not to say daring, and its reception was so favorable that it went through twenty editions during its first year.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was the daughter of a professor in the Andover Theological Seminary. She had been christened with another name; but on the death of her mother, in 1852, she took her name in full. She had been publishing sketches and stories since her thirteenth year, her writings being largely related to charitable, temperance and other reform work. She has written a long series of books beginning with “Ellen’s Idol” in 1864, and including a number of series――“The Tiny Series,” “The Gypsy Series,” etc., intended for Sunday-school libraries, and some fifteen or twenty stories and books of poems. Besides these, she has written sketches, stories and poems in large numbers for the current magazines.

In 1888 she became the wife of Rev. Herbert D. Ward. Their summer home is at East Gloucester, Massachusetts, while in winter they live at Newton Highlands. Thoughtfulness and elevation of spirit mark all Mrs. Ward’s literary work. The philanthropic purpose is evident in every one of them, and she contributes to the cause of humanity, not only through her books, but in the time, labor and money which she freely bestows. Mrs. Ward may be taken as a practical example of that noble type of American women who combine literary skill, broad intelligence, and love of mankind with a high degree of spirituality and whose work for humanity is shown in the progress of our people. Her purpose has always been high and the result of her work ennobling. In her books the thought of man and the thought of God blend in a harmony very significant of the spirit of the time, a spirit which she has done much to awaken and to promote.

* * * * *

THE HANDS AT HAYLE AND KELSO’S.¹

(FROM “THE SILENT PARTNER.”)

¹ Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

IF you are one of the “hands,” then in Hayle and Kelso you have a breakfast of bread and molasses probably; you are apt to eat it while you dress. Somebody is heating the kettle, but you cannot wait for it. Somebody tells you that you have forgotten your shawl; you throw it over one shoulder and step out, before it is fastened, into the sudden raw air. You left lamplight indoors, you find moonlight without. The night seems to have overslept itself; you have a fancy for trying to wake it――would like to shout at it or cry through it, but feel very cold, and leave that for the bells to do by-and-by.

You and the bells are the only waking things in life. The great brain of the world is in serene repose; the great heart of the world lies warm to the core with dreams; the great hands of the world, the patient, the perplexed――one almost fancies at times, just for fancy――seeing you here by the morning moon, the dangerous hands alone are stirring in the dark.

You hang up your shawl and your crinoline, and understand, as you go shivering by gaslight to your looms, that you are chilled to the heart, and that you were careless about your shawl, but do not consider carefulness worth your while by nature or by habit; a little less shawl means a few less winters in which to require shawling. You are a godless little creature, but you cherish a stolid learning, in those morning moons, towards making an experiment of death and a wadded coffin.

By the time the gas is out, you cease perhaps――though you cannot depend upon that――to shiver, and incline less and less to the wadded coffin, and more to a chat with your neighbor in the alley. Your neighbor is of either sex and any description as the case may be. In any event――warming a little with the warming day――you incline more and more to chat.

If you chance to be a cotton weaver, you are presently warm enough. It is quite warm enough in the weaving-room. The engines respire into the weaving-room; with every throb of their huge lungs you swallow their breath. The weaving-room stifles with steam. The window-sills are gutted to prevent the condensed ♦steam from running in streams along the floor; sometimes they overflow, and the water stands under the looms. The walls perspire profusely; on a damp day drops will fall from the roof. The windows of the weaving-room are closed. They must be closed; a stir in the air will break your threads. There is no air to stir; you inhale for a substitute a motionless hot moisture. If you chance to be a cotton weaver, it is not in March that you think most about your coffin.

♦ ‘stream’ replaced with ‘steam’

Being a “hand” in Hayle and Kelso, you are used to eating cold luncheon in the cold at noon; or you walk, for the sake of a cup of soup or coffee, half-a-mile, three-quarters, a mile and a-half, and back. You are allowed three-quarters of an hour to do this. You go and come upon the jog-trot.

* * * * *

From swearing you take to singing; both perhaps, are equal relief――active and diverting. There is something curious about that singing of yours. The tune, the place, the singers, characterize it sharply; the waning light, the rival din, the girls with tired faces. You start some little thing with a refrain, and a ring to it. A hymn, it is not unlikely; something of a River and of Waiting, and of Toil and Rest, or Sleep, or Crowns, or Harps, or Home, or Green Fields, or Flowers, or Sorrow, or Repose, or a dozen other things; but always, it will be noticed, of simple spotless things, such as will surprise the listener who caught you at your oath of five minutes past. You have other songs, neither simple nor spotless, it may be; but you never sing them at your work when the waning day is crawling out from spots beneath your loom, and the girls lift up their tired faces to catch and keep the chorus in the rival din.

* * * * *

You are singing when the bell strikes, and singing still when you clatter down the stairs. Something of the simple spotlessness of the little song is on your face when you dip into the wind and dusk.

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AMELIA E. BARR.

THE POPULAR NOVELIST.

PERHAPS no other writer in the United States commands so wide a circle of readers, both at home and abroad, as does Mrs. Barr. She is, however, personally, very little known, as her disposition is somewhat shy and retiring, and most of her time is spent at her home on the Storm King Mountain at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York.

Mrs. Barr’s life has been an eventful one, broken in upon by sorrow, bereavement and hardship, and she has risen superior to her trials and made her way through difficulties in a manner which is possible only to an individual of the strongest character.

Amelia E. Huddleston was born at Ulverstone, in the northwest of England, in 1832. She early became a thorough student, her studies being directed by her father, who was an eloquent and learned preacher. When she was seventeen, she went to a celebrated school in Scotland; but her education was principally derived from the reading of books to her father.

When about eighteen she was married to Robert Barr, and soon after came to America, traveling in the West and South. They were in New Orleans in 1856 and were driven out by the yellow fever, and settled in Austin, Texas, where Mr. Barr received an appointment in the comptroller’s office. Removing to Galveston after the Civil War, Mr. Barr and his four sons died in 1876 of yellow fever. As soon as she could safely do so, Mrs. Barr took her three daughters to New York, where she obtained an appointment to assist in the education of the three sons of a prominent merchant. When she had prepared these boys for college, she looked about for other means of livelihood, and, by the assistance of Henry Ward Beecher and Doctor Lyman Abbott, she was enabled to get some contributions accepted by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, for whose periodicals she wrote for a number of years. An accident which happened to her in 1884 changed her life and conferred upon the world a very great benefit. She was confined to her chair for a considerable time, and, being compelled to abandon her usual methods of work, she wrote her first novel, “Jan Vedder’s Wife.” It was instantly successful, running through many editions, and has been translated into one or two European languages. Since that time she has published numerous stories. One of the most successful was “Friend Olivia,” a study of Quaker character which recalls the closing years of the Commonwealth in England, and which her girlhood’s home at Ulverstone, the scene of the rise of Quakerism, gave her special advantages in preparing. It is an unusually powerful story; and the pictures of Cromwell and George Fox are not only refreshingly new and bright but remarkably just and appreciative. Some of her other stories are “Feet of Clay,” the scene of which is laid on the Isle of Man; “The Bow of Orange Ribbon,” a study of Dutch life in New York; “Remember the Alamo,” recalling the revolt of Texas; “She Loved a Sailor,” which deals with sea life and which draws its scenes from the days of slavery; “The Last of the MacAllisters;” “A Sister of Esau;” and “A Rose of a Hundred Leaves.” Only a slight study of Mrs. Barr’s books is necessary to show the wide range of her sympathies, her quick and vivid imagination, and her wonderful literary power; and her career has been an admirable illustration of the power of some women to win success even under the stress of sorrow, disaster and bereavement.

* * * * *

LITTLE JAN’S TRIUMPH.¹

(FROM ♦“JAN VEDDER’s WIFE.”)

¹ Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.

♦ ‘JANE’ replaced with ‘JAN’

AS she approached her house, she saw a crowd of boys, and little Jan walking proudly in front of them. One was playing “Miss Flora McDonald’s Reel” on a violin, and the gay strains were accompanied by finger-snapping, whistling, and occasional shouts. “There is no quiet to be found anywhere, this morning,” thought Margaret, but her curiosity was aroused, and she went towards the children. They saw her coming, and with an accession of clamor hastened to meet her. Little Jan carried a faded, battered wreath of unrecognizable materials, and he walked as proudly as Pompey may have walked in a Roman triumph. When Margaret saw it, she knew well what had happened, and she opened her arms, and held the boy to her heart, and kissed him over and over, and cried out, “Oh, my brave little Jan, brave little Jan! How did it happen then? Thou tell me quick.”

“Hal Ragner shall tell thee, my mother;” and Hal eagerly stepped forward:

“It was last night, Mistress Vedder, we were all watching for the ‘Arctic Bounty;’ but she did not come, and this morning as we were playing, the word was passed that she had reached Peter Fae’s pier. Then we all ran, but thou knowest that thy Jan runs like a red deer, and so he got far ahead, and leaped on board, and was climbing the mast first of all. Then Bor Skade, he tried to climb over him, and Nichol Sinclair, he tried to hold him back, but the sailors shouted, ‘Bravo, little Jan Vedder!’ and the skipper shouted ‘Bravo!’ and thy father, he shouted higher than all the rest. And when Jan had cut loose the prize, he was like to greet for joy, and he clapped his hands, and kissed Jan, and he gave him five gold sovereigns,――see, then, if he did not!” And little Jan proudly put his hand in his pocket, and held them out in his small soiled palm.

The feat which little Jan had accomplished is one which means all to the Shetland boy that his first buffalo means to the Indian youth. When a whaler is in Arctic seas, the sailors on the first of May make a garland of such bits of ribbons, love tokens, and keepsakes, as have each a private history, and this they tie to the top of the mainmast. There it swings, blow high or low, in sleet and hail, until the ship reaches her home-port. Then it is the supreme emulation of every lad, and especially of every sailor’s son, to be first on board and first up the mast to cut it down, and the boy who does it is the hero of the day, and has won his footing on every Shetland boat.

What wonder, then, that Margaret was proud and happy? What wonder that in her glow of delight the thing she had been seeking was made clear to her? How could she go better to Suneva than with this crowd of happy boys? If the minister thought she ought to share one of her blessings with Suneva, she would double her obedience, and ask her to share the mother’s as well as the wife’s joy.

“One thing I wish, boys,” she said happily, “let us go straight to Peter Fae’s house, for Hal Ragner must tell Suneva Fae the good news also.” So, with a shout, the little company turned, and very soon Suneva, who was busy salting some fish in the cellar of her house, heard her name called by more than fifty shrill voices, in fifty different keys.

She hurried upstairs, saying to herself, “It will be good news, or great news, that has come to pass, no doubt; for when ill-luck has the day, he does not call any one like that; he comes sneaking in.” Her rosy face was full of smiles when she opened the door, but when she saw Margaret and Jan standing first of all, she was for a moment too amazed to speak.

Margaret pointed to the wreath: “Our Jan took it from the topmast of the ‘Arctic Bounty,’” she said. “The boys brought him home to me, and I have brought him to thee, Suneva. I thought thou would like it.”

“Our Jan!” In those two words Margaret cancelled everything remembered against her. Suneva’s eyes filled, and she stretched out both her hands to her step-daughter.

“Come in, Margaret! Come in, my brave, darling Jan! Come in, boys, everyone of you! There is cake, and wheat bread, and preserved fruit enough for you all; and I shall find a shilling for every boy here, who has kept Jan’s triumph with him.”

* * * * *

THE OLD PIANO.

HOW still and dusky is the long-closed room!
What lingering shadows and what faint perfume
Of Eastern treasures!――sandal wood and scent
With nard and cassia and with roses blent.
Let in the sunshine.
Quaint cabinets are here, boxes and fans,
And hoarded letters full of hopes and plans.
I pass them by. I came once more to see
The old piano, dear to memory,
In past days mine.

Of all sad voices from forgotten years,
Its is the saddest; see what tender tears
Drop on the yellow keys as, soft and slow,
I play some melody of long ago.
How strange it seems!
The thin, weak notes that once were rich and strong
Give only now the shadow of a song――
The dying echo of the fuller strain
That I shall never, never hear again,
Unless in dreams.

What hands have touched it! Fingers small and white,
Since stiff and weary with life’s toil and fight;
Dear clinging hands that long have been at rest,
Folded serenely on a quiet breast.
Only to think,
O white sad notes, of all the pleasant days,
The happy songs, the hymns of holy praise,
The dreams of love and youth, that round you cling!
Do they not make each sighing, trembling string
A mighty link?

The old piano answers to my call,
And from my fingers lets the lost notes fall.
O soul! that I have loved, with heavenly birth
Wilt thou not keep the memory of earth,
Its smiles and sighs?
Shall wood and metal and white ivory
Answer the touch of love with melody,
And thou forget? Dear one, not so.
I move thee yet (though how I may not know)
Beyond the skies.

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

MISS ALICE FRENCH.

(_Octave Thanet_).

THE REPRESENTATIVE NOVELIST OF THE SOUTHWEST.

AS one of the most prominent among our modern women novelists stands the name of Octave Thanet. The real owner of this widely known pen-name is Miss Alice French. Though Miss French is recognized as the representative novelist of Missouri, Arkansas, and the Southwest generally, where she has lived for many years, she is by birth and education a genuine Yankee woman, and on both sides a descendant from old Puritan stock. Her ancestors came over in the Mayflower. They count among them many Revolutionary heroes and not a few persecutors of the witches one hundred and fifty and two hundred years ago, and they, also, number to themselves some of the modern rulers and prominent ministers of Massachusetts.

Mr. French, the father of the authoress, was during his life a loyal Westerner, but it is said never lost his fondness for the East and went there regularly every summer, and his daughter still maintains the custom. While Mr. French was a thorough business man, he was, moreover, an enthusiastic lover of books and the fine arts, and instilled into Miss Alice during her early training a love for reading, and encouraged her to write.

Shortly after her graduation at Abbott Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Miss French sent a manuscript for publication, but the editors to whom she sent it advised her to wait until her judgment was more mature and her reading more extensive. She accepted their advice and remained silent for several years, and then sent her first book, “The Communist’s Wife,” to a New York publisher, who declined it, whereupon she forwarded it to other publishers, and it was finally brought out by Lippincotts of Philadelphia, and made such a success that assured easy access for her subsequent works, through any publisher to whom she would send them, to the reading world. The royalty on her various books now brings her a handsome and steady income.

Among the most prominent publications of Octave Thanet’s are “Knitters in the Sun” (Boston, 1887); “Otto the Knight” (1888); “Expiated” and “We All,” issued from New York in 1890. Since that date she has written several other volumes of equal merit, each new book adding to her well-established reputation and popularity. She has also edited the best “Letters of Lady Montague.”

The pen-name of this writer was the result of chance. When in school she had a room-mate, Octavia, who was familiarly known as Octave. The word Thanet she saw by chance printed on a passing freight car. It struck her fancy and she adopted it; hence the pseudonym “Octave Thanet.” It is said that she regrets having adopted a _nom-de-plume_, but since she has made her fame under that name she continues to use it. Miss French is something of a philosopher and artist as well as a novelist, and is deeply read in historical studies as well as the English-German philosophers. She is one of the most domestic of women and declares that she is a great deal better cook than a writer, and that it is a positive delight to her to arrange a dinner. Most prominent women have a fad, and that of Miss French is for collecting china. She is also fond of outdoor sports and takes considerable interest in politics. While not an advocate of woman’s suffrage, she declares herself to be a moderate free-trade Democrat, and a firm believer in honest money. Whether the latter term implies a single gold standard or the free coinage of silver, the writer is unable to ascertain.

The strength of Octave Thanet’s writing is largely due to the fact that she studies her subjects assiduously, going to original sources for her pictures of bygone times, and getting both facts and impressions so far as possible from the fountain-head. She is regarded not only as the best delineator of the life of the middle Western States, but the most careful student of human nature, and, perhaps the best storyteller among our modern short-story writers. She lives a simple life on a farm and draws her characters from the people around about her.

* * * * *

TWO LOST AND FOUND.¹

[FROM “KNITTERS IN THE SUN.”]

¹ By Permission ♦Houghton Mifflin & Co.

♦ ‘Hougton’ replaced with ‘Houghton’

THEY rode along, Ruffner furtively watching Bud, until finally the elder man spoke with the directness of primitive natures and strong excitement:

“Whut’s come ter ye, Bud Quinn? Ye seem all broke up ’beout this yere losin’ yo’ little trick (child); yet ye didn’t useter set no gre’t store by ’er――least, looked like――”

“I knaw,” answered Bud, lifting his heavy eyes, too numb himself with weariness and misery to be surprised,――“I knaw, an’ ’t are curi’s ter me too. I didn’t set no store by ’er w’en I had ’er. I taken a gredge agin ’er kase she hadn’t got no good sense, an’ you all throwed it up to me fur a jedgment. An’ knowin’ how I hadn’t done a thing to hurt Zed, it looked cl’ar agin right an’ natur’ fur the Lord ter pester me that a-way; so someways I taken the notion ’twar the devil, and that he got inter Ma’ Bowlin’, an’ I mos’ cudn’t b’ar the sight ’er that pore little critter. But the day she got lost kase ’er tryin’ ter meet up with me, I ’lowed mabbe he tolled ’er off, an’ I sorter felt bad fur ’er, an’ w’en I seen them little tracks ’er her’n, someways all them mean feelin’s I got they jes broked off short insider me like a string mought snap. They done so. An’ I wanted thet chile bader’n I ever wanted anything.”

“Law me!” said Ruffner, quite puzzled. “But, say, Bud, ef ye want ’er so bad ’s all thet, ye warn’t wanter mad the Lord by lyin’, kase He are yo’ on’y show now. Bud Quinn, did ye hurt my boy?” He had pushed his face close to Bud’s, and his mild eyes were glowing like live coals.

“Naw, Mr. Ruffner,” answered Bud, quietly. “I never teched a ha’r ’er ’is head!”

Ruffner kept his eager and almost fierce scrutiny a moment, then he drew a long gasping sigh, crying,

“Blame my skin ef I don’ b’lieve ye! I’ve ’lowed, fur a right smart, we all used ye mighty rough.”

“’Tain’t no differ,” said Bud, dully. Nothing mattered now, the poor fellow thought; Ma’ Bowlin’ was dead, and Sukey hated him.

Ruffner whistled slowly and dolefully; that was his way of expressing sympathy; but the whistle died on his lips, for Bud smote his shoulder, then pointed toward the trees.

“Look a-thar!” whispered Bud, with a ghastly face and dilating eyeballs. “Oh, Lord A’mighty, thar’s her――an’ _him_!”

Ruffner saw a boat leisurely propelled by a long pole approaching from the river-side, a black-haired young man in the bow with the pole, a fair-haired little girl in the stern. The little girl jumped up, and at the same instant a shower of water from light flying heels blinded the young man.

“Paw! Paw!” screamed the little girl. “Maw tole Ma’ Bowlin’――meet up――paw!”

* * * * *

Just as the big clock in the store struck the last stroke of six, Sukey Quinn, who had been cowering on the platform steps, lifted her head and put her hand to her ear. Then everybody heard it, the long peal of a horn. The widow from Georgia ran quickly up to Sukey and threw her arms about her shoulders. For a second the people held their breath. It had been arranged that whoever found the lost child should give the signal by blowing his horn, once if the searchers came too late, three times if the child should be alive. Would the horn blow again?

“It are Bud’s horn!” sobbed Sukey. “He’d never blow fur onst. Hark! Thar’t goes agin! Three times! An’ me wouldn’t hev no truck with ’im, but she set store by Ma’ Bowlin’ all the time.”

Horn after horn caught up the signal joyfully, and when the legitimate blowing was over, two enterprising boys exhausted themselves on a venerable horn which was so cracked that no one would take it. In an incredibly short time every soul within hearing distance, not to mention a herd of cattle and a large number of swine, had run to the store, and when at last two horses’ heads appeared above the hill, and the crowd could see a little pink sun-bonnet against Bud Quinn’s brown jean, an immense clamor rolled out.

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Illustration: (‡ decoration)

JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN.

THE STORY-TELLER OF THE PILGRIMS.

THIS famous daughter of the Pilgrims has become a specialist in their behalf, and has pledged her remaining years to develop their story. Every summer she visits Plymouth, where she constantly studies not only the written records of the Pilgrim Fathers, but the crumbling gravestones and the oral traditions which have come down among their descendants. Her contribution to the literature of early New England possesses a rare value, found, perhaps, in no other writer, enriched from her intimate knowledge of the pioneers of the Eastern Colonists gained from her long study, thorough reading, and a careful investigation of their history and traditions.

Mrs. Austin was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1831. Her parents were from Plymouth, and counted their lineage back to the Mayflower Pilgrims in no less than eight distinct lines. She also claims a descent from Francis le Baron; thus, believers in heredity will recognize in this the root of Mrs. Austin’s remarkable devotion to Pilgrim stories and traditions. Her father, Isaac Goodwin, was a lawyer of considerable prominence, and had also devoted much study to genealogy. Her brother, the Honorable John A. Goodwin, was the author of “The Pilgrim Republic,” which is considered the best history of the settlement of Plymouth. Her mother, besides being a poet and song-writer, was also a lover of the traditions and anecdotes of her native region, and many of the stories embodied in Mrs. Austin’s later works she has heard as a child at her mother’s knee, especially those relating to “The Nameless Nobleman,” “Francis le Baron and His Family.”

Among the best of Mrs. Austin’s Pilgrim story-books are “The Nameless Nobleman” (1881); “Standish of Standish” (1889); “Doctor le Baron and His Daughters” (1890); and “Betty Alden” (1891). These cover the ground from the landing of the Pilgrims upon Plymouth Rock in 1620 to the days of the Revolution in 1775. Aside from these books, Mrs. Austin has produced in addition to a number of magazine stories and some poems, “Fairy Dream” (1859); “Dora Darling” (1865); “Outpost” (1866); “Taylor Boy” (1867); “Cypher” (1869); “The Shadow of Moloch Mountains” (1870); “Moon-Folk” (1874); “Mrs. Beauchamp Brown” (1880); and “Nantucket Scraps” (1882). Since 1891 Mrs. Austin has added a fifth volume to her “Pilgrim Stories,” completing the series. All of her writings are in a finished style, remarkable alike for delicacy, purity and clearness of expression, and her work is distinctly American.

Personally Mrs. Austin is a charming woman, much beloved by those who know her best. She has three children, and her home is with a married daughter at Roxbury, Massachusetts; but she spends much of her time in Boston.

* * * * *

AN AFTERNOON IN NANTUCKET.¹

FROM “NANTUCKET SCRAPS,” 1883.

¹ Copyright, Jas. R. Osgood.

THE drowsy hours of afternoon were devoted to the museum, collected and exhibited by the public-spirited widow of a sea-captain named McCleve. An upper room to her comfortable house is devoted to the curios, although, like attar of roses, or some penetrating oils, they seem to have saturated the entire mansion,――the good-natured proprietress occasionally haling a favored guest away from the rest to look at some quaint picture, piece of china, or bit of furniture in her own private apartments. The party of twelve or fourteen collected on this special afternoon were taken to the upper room and seated around a small table, as if for a spiritual _séance_, the hostess arranging precedence and proximity with an autocratic good-humor to which everybody yielded except the señor, who, standing looking in at the door, was presently accosted with――

“That gentleman at the door――why――I’ve seen that face before! Don’t you tell me it’s Sam!”

“No, I won’t, Aunty McCleve, for you’d be sure to contradict me if I did,” replied the señor, coolly; whereupon Aunty shook him affectionately by the hand, assuring him he was the same “saucy boy” he used to be, and dragged him most reluctantly to a seat in the magical circle.

“At what period of the entertainment do we pay?” inquired one of the persons one meets everywhere, and who may be called the whit-leather of society. Mrs. McCleve looked at him with an appreciative eye for a moment, and then quietly replied:

“Well, it isn’t often people bring it out quite so plain as that, but I guess _you’d_ better pay now before you forget it.” Whit-leather does not suffer from sarcasm, and the practical man, producing a quarter of a dollar, held it tight while asking――

“Have you got ten cents change?”

“No, brother; but you can keep your quarter till I have,” replied Aunty, with the quiet gleam still in her eye, and the business was soon adjusted. This over, she placed upon the table a tray containing some really exquisite carvings in whale’s-tooth ivory, comprising a set of napkin-rings, thread-winders, spoons of various sizes, knife-handles, and several specimens of a utensil peculiar to Nantucket, called a jagging-knife, used for carving ornamental patterns in pastry,――a species of embroidery for which Nantucket housewives were once famous, although, “pity ’tis, ’tis true,” they have now largely emancipated themselves from such arts.

As the guests examined these really wonderful products of talent almost unaided by implements or training, one of the ladies naturally inquired: “Who did these?” The hostess assumed a sibylline attitude and tone: “Perhaps, my dear, you can tell us that; and if so, you’ll be the first one I ever met that could.” This obscure intimation of course awakened an interest far deeper than the carvings, in every mind; and in reply to a shower of questioning the sibyl gave a long and intricate narration, beginning with the presence on board of her husband’s whale-ship of a mystic youth with the manners and bearing of Porphyrogenitus, and the rating of a common sailor; the delicate suggestion of a disguised lady was also dimly introduced. What succeeds is yet more wonderful, as Scheherezade always said when obliged to cut short the story that the Sultan might get up and say his prayers; but we will not evade Mrs. McCleve’s copyright by telling it, simply advising everyone to go and listen to it.

“Two, four, six, eight, ten――elev-en!” counted she at the end, picking up the napkin-rings; “I don’t seem to see that twelfth ring!” and she looked hard at the unfortunate that had acquired her dislike in the first of the interview by an unfeeling allusion to money.

“Here it is, Aunty,” remarked the señor. “I wanted to hear you ask after it.”

“Now, look at here, Sammy, you’re too old for such tricks,” ♦expostulated the dame, in precisely the tone one admonishes a child; and then turning to the company generally she added confidentially:

♦ ‘exposulated’ replaced with ‘expostulated’

“I ain’t one of them that’s given to suspicion, and it ain’t a Nantucket failing; but last summer there was a boy, one of those half-grown critters, you know, neither beef nor veal, and I just saw him pocket――well, it was that very knife-handle. I always kept an eye on it since, thinking it might be off yet. So I waited till I saw he actooally meant it, and was fixing to go off with it, and then says I:

“‘Well, sonny, going to unload before you start out on a new v’yge?’ So that’s all about the carvings; and these are shark’s teeth,――none of your Wauwinet sand-sharks that would run away from a puppy-dog no bigger than that, but a reg’lar man-eater off the West Indies; and these very teeth took a man’s leg off.”

“Horrible!” cried one, while another, one of the persistent souls who must finish A before they begin B, inquired: “But did the boy give up the knife-handle?”