Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-09-25
MRS. STOVES CHILDHOOD.
She Saw Visions. the Moving Creatures OF
the Vivid Ina sination-

She Saw Visions. the Moving Creatures of
the Vivid Imagination.
1t was a plain-looking little one, with
q thin face and large brown ewes, and
tangled curls of brown hair, that soon
began to run around in the minister's
home at Litchfeld. But her baby reign
continued only short time, for scarce
" two years later Master Henry Ward
arrived upon the scene. Harriet was
naturally gentle and affectionate and
very quick to learn She has said she
knew how to read as soon as she could
walk, and she was so observing that it
was common remark in the family:
That child is all ear" Not so active
as Catherine, the eldest of the daugh-
ters, she was still lar from indolent, but
was dreamy and imaginative. with nerv-
Gus system that was quickly and deeply
impressed by all that she saw and
heard. In word, her brain and nerves
were the sensitized plate on which
genius took pictures of all life's move
ments. So marked was this quality of
mpressionability in her that she always
lived, even long after childhood. a kind
of double life, in which the moving
creatures thrown by Imagination and
nervous ideality Of her consciousness
moved like mirage before and around
her, in ever-returning professions.
These familiar beings were just as real
10 her as the people in the house: the
old white-headed man that played on
violin, the tall majestic woman who
wore a high fur cap of peculiar form
and danced to the old mans music
these shifting shapes seemed ever to
haunt certain scenes and 10 appear only
in connection with them. There. too,
was an image of a green meadow and
calm lake. and coming from a grove on
one side of it, a tiny woman clothed
in white, with Il wide golden girdle
around her waist, followed by 4 mis-
shapen dwarf. Regularly a night the
air around her bed seemed like that
which Raphael has Swallowed forth
around his Madonna Iii San Sisto. a pal
pitating crowd Of faces and forms chang
ing in dim and gliding quictude." The
reader of ''OldtOwn Folks" will recall,
too, that Horace Holyoke saw the shad-
owy figure Of sad lady standing among
the eyergreens. as they drove up to a
house wholly unknown to him, within
" A1-St- my AOA'.ANt t-i' l''NCNAAS "a VIC
same lady. That these apparitions were,
in some unexplained way. the reflex of
her own sensitive and powerful imagi-
nation is seen in this, that they 'ap-
peared to cause a vibration of the great
central nerves of the body, as
when a harp-string is struck" Once
or twice, when she was older,
she began TO tell OF what she saw,
but was quickly shut up with: Non
sense, child. there hasn't been any
body in the room. You shouldn't talk
So" Thus repressed, she ceased to
speak of these apparitions, but none the
less did she believe in them as daily
friends, whose presence had the effect
to inspire her with a fearless confidence
in all things supernatural. For the
rest, she was 4 quiet, anna bic little
girl, but more inclined to outdoor
sports with her brothers than to thread
and needles or even to dolls, and she
was often needless and careless This
last trait drew down upon her many
disciplinary sorrow, especially from
Aunt Harriet, who having tender
place in her heart for her small name
sake from the first, took hand in her
education and training, often keeping
her for months at Nutplains.-
7. Allen, in Lippincott's.