The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-12-08
IOWA AUTHORS RECALL FAVOR

TIES.
The Des Moines Capital on Wednes-
| day issued its annual book number
and Herewith scored distinct sue
cess. Ten well-fllled pages ara given
over to books and their authors. Credit
1 is due personally to Emile Blackmore
Stapp, the literary editor of the Cap
| ital, for the extra treat thus afforded
the readers of that always excellent
paper
A feature of the number is a sym.
postum contributed by Iowa authors
on their .avorite books when they
we're children The contributors are
Alice French, Ellis Parker Butler,
Randall Pari~h, Hamlin Garland, Iry-
1 ing Berdine Richman, Herbert Quick,
lGulielma Zollinger, Emerson Hough,
Edna Ferber. G. Walter Barr, Robert
~. Burdette, Elbridge H. Sabin, Edward
4 A. Steiner and Leroy Titus Weeks.
Each in turn tells of childhool'a IA
Iyorites. Alice French OCTAVE
Thanet) was brought up on Scotts
lnovels-Scott's and Cooper's. Ellis
PARKER Butler, lying on his ''tummy''
on a pile of red carpet, used to read
Shakespeare. Between spells of youth
full highbrowism he used to spit fluent
llv on the upper corner of the big
rages and watch the river run down
across the page. The book that Ran
dali Parish loved and read and read
Until it actually became part of him
self was Oliver Optic'r The Drummer
Boy" Hamlin Garland recalls a
Life of Franklin an6 Milton's
poems: later "Ivanhoe'' and THE
Hoosier Schoolmaster" tilted for SUI
premacy; and he remembers weeping
and beating the earth in an agony OF
!; indignation over The Scottish
Chiefs but he frankly confesses that
the books most vital and interesting to
him were "Old Nick. the Scourge OF
Kentucky and Jack Harkaway
Among the Redskins. He would leave
Millions Paradise any day to follow
the fortunes OF The Quaker Scout
| Herbert Quick was entranced by. de-
lightfully shivery story called Alice
lLearmont, or Mothers Love, and
Alice was restored to her family.
tGulielma Zollingers earliest love was
Mother Goose" also fond of Arab
ian Nights, particularly of Aladdin"
and the Forty Thieves Emerson
Hough's most delightful childhood's
hours-some of them-were spent
curled up in window porting over the
Book of Kings. He liked reading about
the fights recorded therein Edna
| Ferber had a preference for Dickens.
Robert j. Burdette's first book was
The Pilgrims Progress Jules
Verne's "a Journey to the North Pole
was E. H. Sabin's favorite book in
childhood. "The Life of Colonel David
Crockett" was read and re-read, and
read again and then some by Leroy
III. Weeks. AS regards the fayorite
books in the early life of our local
literary celebrity, DR.. G. Walter Barr,
We herewith let the gentleman speak
at some length for himsen as follows:
1 did not have any childhood books,
dog-eared or otherwise. At the age
tof four or FIVE began - read in my
! fathers excellent library of classics.
Since / had to take care of those
books, to this day book of any kind,
even fifty-cent copyright, is as semi
sacred to me as cur dog is to an anti
viyisectionist
The books read hardest and most
4 first were Paradise Lost, Froude's
Life OF Frederick the Great running
lseriaily in Harper's; several Dickens
novels: Jane Eyre, Du Chaille
hook: The Story of Bad Boy run
IninS serially in Our Young Folks. and
The Science of Familiar Things
This last | kept at long time. It
vas physical science in question and
answer form and treated of light,
sound, motion. chemical action. heat
and electricity quite fully. / knew al
about refraction. sound woves. ohms
and falling bodies long before knew
/ the MULTIPLICATION tables. This book
was and IS my special t-easure. hut it
was as clean ami whole the other day
when | rambled through it again as
when it was new. The book 7 spent
the most time mastering before was
4 ten years old was tome on the CON
servation and correlation of forces
/ intended for high-browed university
professors of physics.
THAT devoted a part of nv adult
1 life to science was entirely accidental
and without connection with the fore.
going. Ny real life work is the re-
suit Of the greatest and most interest
ling book | ever studied-the blue grass
banks of the Mad river and the black
mountains of storm clouds rolling up
1.-THE western sky were its two covers,
and between were rivers and bluffs
and prairies and flowers and many
most beautiful and interesting things.
II still retain my childhood delight in
q thunderstorm and 9. prairie covered
with bloom Of Spanish needle and
4 cardinal fowern