The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-09-25
HOME OF
 FRANK CALKINS, THE MOD-
 ERN KENMORE COOPER
BY ETHEL ARMIES.

tate broker lawyer, mine owner r,,a nt'o to secured the west from the Black hiiss u9,eb | ene Rio Grande, and has retained s~S
 clear cut, vivid impressions of ms
 perlenees, such, minute exact pnttine | graphs of places, that the local se''a tbe oI every story he writes, Dredl lhe5 der | true atmosphere and he is able to iSl.ss 1s,sos | the scenes and color that property pe.Ol,S 5a,,, 10 each locality. This power oI llisi e,. in, ana locality, with the inborn hulte. ,s. It stinct are peculiar and unusual gllts' Is in his faithful description of the west, his genuine transcripts from the lIoi,tls- ,,n life, that his chief value as Wrltel l,es. lie has served a rigorous appIen'i,Is aI to facts and technicalties seaieeiS -.o lowed until lately his imaginauon lo na any swing. That is the true artlst ,arD ing, the great musicians. he. ' faa+ the import of the word Wait IS leae
 impossible for most writers. MT. cal kns has not rushed into booK pupnsa
 ton. He has devoted twenty years so
 perfecting the short story or adVeuluIe
 for boys. Under his hand It mas a' length reached the dignity or cla9siIi 1Ssl'Ii
 No longer the hair raising Dare
 Dick of Bloody Gulch nor the t-Ain 4.,,o Noble-Indian of Cooper. It IS the eue thing simple. powerful, dramatic.
 "A cowboyl" exclaimed Mir CalKlhs,
 why does any one think the Remington wild rider brandshlng six shooter anu yelling go to hell is the real thlhs! Noe muchi That is but the smallest siue, ii9 is a quiet, easy going senslple' eNsi
 day man who goes about a stiff grino oi hard work without any bluster ana wnose life is no more eventful than street car conductorsl An eastern "rltei jumps off the train at some irontler station, sees a lot of COW punchers' otc ire or naflaDg an eXcel- lent quality of corn juice and they'll pe- gin to perform for him. He photographs them shooting up town and riding buck ing broncoes and thinks he is seeing IL all. The cast will grab up his book on cowboy life and swallow it whole. Hes been there and knows it says. So IL is with other phases of western lie. rms car window writing is the bane or the west A man must be born here, live here, must have felt every inch Of his way before he starts writing books or anything else The east has no more comprehension of the real west than 1t has of the north pole-not as much!'
 MT. Calkins Is at present devoting the most of his time to the study or the upper Mississippi valley; the old French regime which once existed in the prim- tive wilderness There are three Amer ican authors now steadily working in historic fields: Grace King in the span ish regime of the lower Mississippi, Elm ma Raynor in the colonial era of the middle states, and Frank Calkns in the French regime of the middle west.
 That old fur trading life is interesting ,, beyond words" he declared, The sum mer rendezvous of the French fur trad ing post when the courreurs des bois, the voyageurs, the winterers, the traders, all came out of the wilderness from all corners to meet drink dance; live from l tier Paris when the Indians camped | outside the walls of the fort; when the carly pioneers drove In their wagon train | why in action, color, historic interest, romance-the thing was incomparable! ]! l In his little working library is whole crowd of Des bourgeois de la campagnie du nord quest" countless old tenchnical volumes daries, statistics, lying musty. dormant, awaiting the life giving touch.
 For the most part 1t is q solid Johnson csc library; all the voluminous reports 1 of the bureau of Ethnology; the state 1 historical collections of Wisconsin with l only q beaded tobacco pouch and long l pipe of Red Cloud to suggest adventure
 touches. No, there is little more. Some small green bound books are stuck like | sprigs of mountain juniper in between | the old rose of Tn Castle and Colony and the dark-tinged prehistoric tale of l Alb. They are the authors own Frontier l sketches, Indian tales and hunting sto- ries. Then too, there Is a flutter of l fans and rustic of silks, a few heart
 beats, the subtle working of a thousand
 complex souls, and the humans of Tol-
 stoi, Henry James, William Dean How
 els and Daudet swing into line on the l book shelves. MT. Callxins is a realist.
 T want the genuine ring" he says,
 life given as 1t Is. things full of power because they are full of truth!'