The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1900-08-04
A YOUNG WRITER'S FIRST EXPERIENCE.

Ruth II. Matthews.
YOUNG WRITER'S FIRST EXPERIENCE
One day letter came to the Green
hill house with publishers check il
it. Dorothy Greenhill's S fingers trem
bled as she opened the envelope, and
she read the figures on the check with
open-eyed wonder. She tiptoed up.
stairs, locked the doors of her room
and gazed at herself in the glass.
Was she indeed being of talent
genius? What would John Felix
say to that?
She turned to her desk. "Dear
little pen it was you and 1 and the
ink bottle that did it. You dear
things how wonderful you are p
and she kissed them. Then she went
and kissed her mother and told her
all about it.
Mrs. Greenhill rose to the occasion
she blessed and embraced her child
she trembled with the ecstasy of the
moment ; her eyes flowed with happy
tears.
"At last, my Dorothy, fame has
found you out You are no longer
an obscure being. shudder to think
how often this gifted hand has wash
ed the dishes, and even peeled pota-
toes 1t shall never be degraded
again. We shall keep the best of
cooks, and your dresses shall be made
in Paris You shall do nothing but
write all of the time. You wrote
this story in three days, you say.
That will be two a week, if you keep
steadily at it, and we shall be swim
ming in money p
Dorothy made face.
81 don't want to be swimming in
money. I want to be as have al
ways been. l don't know how I hap
pened to write that something
came over me. 1t will not come again
get a lot of paper, and ink, too.
Don't you think purple ink would be
better it is more cheerful than black.
All you have to do from this time on
is to stay still and write. will bring
your coffee to you regularly, and you
shall always have rare beef-even
perfectly raw. when you are writing
anything that is exciting, like muir
der scenes"
"Oh, mamma, stop. Do you think
I am a pugilist or butcher? How
terribly you talk p
"You need a cup of tea, dear. 1t
will settle your nerves and stimulate
your brain.
ooh, mamma, I have no nerves
and no brain, either. Ali I want is a
bowl of bread and milk and a chance
to go to brainy."
The mother spent a sleepless night.
Splendid visions filled the mind. In
all of them she herself figured beauti-
fully in trained gowns as the mother
of the gifted young author who had
set the world a6re. She was up be-
times in the morning arranging a
writing-room for her daughter. She
hung the walls with pictures of au-
thors and piled poetry books on the
table, and brought down the old desk
from the attic, which she placed in a
good light before the one window.
"Yo have nothing to do but to go
in there and shut the door and write
poetry -
"But it is so stuffy, mamma, and
it smells of the furniture polish you
put on the desk. 1 cannot sit down
there and stare at the paper all day.
am going to put the house in order
Just as usual.
"This is madness, Dorothy. Are
you going back now that you have
struck the path of fame? Are you
going to fall in the eyes of all your
friends and acquaintances?" ?"
81 hope you have not told any one
about it"
Indeed 1 have, early and late. !
told the neighbors last night and DR..
Felix at sunrise this morning."
"What did he say about it?'
"He said that he had lost his case
that typhoid fever case over in
Swampton."
"Oh, OH" said Dorothy, her eyes
filling with tears, 'isn't it dread
full ?"
''It is dreadful that any one with
your genius should excite yourself
even to tears about some one you do
not know. All you have to do is tc
write. Do you not care for me,
Dorothy? Can't you see what it is
to me that you should succeed !"
The mother spoke with fierce
earnestness, her eyes burnt with a fire
of wistfulness, and her small face was
tense with eager desire, and the
daughters heart yielded, pity got the
better of her judgment.
"Well, mother" she said at last,
''I will try, 1 will do my best"
So Dorothy glued herself to the
desk day after day, and week after
week, but the inspiration which had
produced her first article never came
back to her except for faint glow
upon an occasional paragraph which
could not lift the body of the story
out of its dreary dearth of incident
and blot. She toiled on, losing
health and spirits, she wore her hail
in tight knot at the top of her head
she had no heart for the jaunty COS
tunes which once were her delight
Her mother shut her off from the
home duties of which she was SO fond
and as far as possible excluded hel
from the society of her friends.