The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-02-14

To be called "queer'' often implies in a youth or maiden the possession of pow CTS too full and strong to run in the shal- low little channel conyentionaHty mas traced for commonplace minds. Conven- tionality is the apothaosis of mediocrity. Once you get the reputation of being queer, however, you can mostly do as you like without annoyance.
 At Smith College few years ago there was girl who worked her way" as they call it. through the school. Year by year she maintained her class standing with her mates and earned her own living out side in the hours others gave to rest and , recreation. Lucy Stone and others did that half a century ago at Oberlin, the fl. st real college to admit women. That the Smith College girl has done the same recently shows that the brave pioneer stuff in the American women is not yet exhausted.
 Probably because the Smith girl had so much to do she was not specially com panionable with her classmates. or 1t may have been because her mind was matured beyond their schoolgirl stage of develop ment that she was better acquainted with the professors than with the students, and the students loved her none the more therefor. Certainly she rather kept her self aloof and dreamed her girlish dreams alone. Thence came the profound and final judgment of sixteen to eighteen year old Josephine always was little queer" That settled 1t. What man.
 
 occasionally in the Smith college girls school paper. Stories, poems, dialogues and slightly satirical sketches of such power and brilliancy as to attract instant attention appeared from time to time. They were the sustained, polished work of a matured mind that knew its own power and not at all that of a crude, in experienced schoolgirl. It Is remembered now that some one said of the writer in the school paper:
 "Keep your eye on Josephine Dodge Daskam."
 Besides being able to write the stories of genius, maintain her class standing and earn her living sy outside work at one and the same time, Josephine Dodge Daskam had a wonderfully sweet sing ing voice and the trained talent of mu- sician. The song gift perhaps she inner ited from her father. a noted tenor of Stamford, Conn, the town where Jose phine was born in 1875. She herself was for number of years church solo sing CT in Stamford.
 After leaving Smith College she began publishing stories and poems, and unsur- pa ssed luck attended her from the start. She was graduated from Smith College in 1898. In 19SO her first book appeared. and it was named Smith College Sto- ries'' It brought her reputation. and from that time on her work was in de- mand by publishers and magazine editors, willing to pay the highest prices It is told of her that she is the one author the world knows of who never had manuscript rejected. Rudyard Kipling tried in vain to get employment on New York newspapers, but was not consd- cred up to their standard; Dickens at one point early in his career seriously medi tated suicide. Thackeray was harassed with debt to the end of his days, Balzacs life was shortened by the privations he endured before success came, but this gifted girl reached fame and pecuniary success at the first trial of her powers. They were hers when she was only % years old.
 The first phase of her authorship took