Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1912-05-30


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Sometimes they do. I almost feel them
@&ASSA guiding it; and beautiful flowers of thought
&G@& u fall on the snowy pages before me, and l
uk4 81 write so fast my hand gets covered with
uSx U MH ink up TO the wrist, and have dreadful
! uGHaS time afterward, with pumicestone Even
| II. 6H& when angels are not guiding, though, |
usually have two beautiful hopes sprout-
UiRS3nN6 ing in my breast when | begin story.
One is the hope of making it true to life
well do realize that this is the highest
My second hope is that Sister 1rmingarde will read
the story aloud literary class at ST. Katharines
She does; sometimes read girls story when it very
good. She hasn't read of mine for ages, though
she told me with her own lips that several of efforts
held striking examples of what to do and what to
avoid in writing fiction But I've got to write this piece
of literature without either angel hope.
know already that it is not going to be true to life, and
that Sister Irrnngade is not going to read it aloud to
the class And the only example in it is Mabel Bios
som, who is. indeed, terrible one.
Not that the story isn't going to be good It's going
to have ruin in it, and churchyard and ghost and
grim, mysterious, bood-curding happenings If those
don't make good story don't know what does. And
action There's 50 much action that the mere mem
Halloween night makes me feel tired now AS for
Mabel Blossom she's black and blue yet, from the
very we'll be true to lie" can it? And, woe is me-!
it has wickedness in it, too; and Sister Irmingarde
Strings from wickedness the way sensitive plant
shrlnks when you put your foot on it.
You can see how dscouragng all this is but I've
got TO write the story just the same My art is before
stop Only last New Years Day wrote this sem
tence in my resolution book 1t of seventeen,
but it came first:
There is no subject in life that will not write
story about before get through"
. don't thnl, made resolution that was so
interesting. The more thought of it. the liked
Maudie Joyce, and Maude clapped her hands and
Mabel went to her and began pack her trunk
into her soul, and read her thoughts before she
knew she had any and we'll indeed might Mabel Bios
som tremblc. You see, Maudc and Mabel and l run
the class but our influences are different. am the
girl who thinks of intellectual things. and does them
Maudie is the girl who thinks Of spiritual things and
does them. Mabel Blossom alas alack! is the
who sometimes thinks of wicked things, and does them
and gets til" rest of into trouble. Yet love her
I wonder why? will analyze her sinful heart, and
Mabel doesn't like this. I let her read all I write
just as fast as write it, so she can fix her mind
and cross over what say about her so I'm afraid it
doesn't really develop her spiritual nature much Still
of course l have to keep right holding the mirror
up to her., as Shakespeare says To make everything
clear, will describe the difference between Mabel
and Maudie, as they look to the piercing gaze of an
eve that sees into the deepest recesses of human beings
mean my eye The gentle reader ought to know that
without being told, but read it to Mabel, and she
didn't
deals and the community spirit Of hepfulness, and the
hundred best books and what they do you, and the
while Maude talks sometimes it stretches and stretches
ill think she must be blowing it up, the way a boy
does a toy balloon: The minute Maudc comes into
my evenings can feel my soul begin to spread
and sometimes, though limited it to Ma,idie it
makes me feel tired and nervous. Maudie is interested
in her soul all the time, and l am interested in my soul
some of the time. | suppose that's the difference
Mabel Blossom doesn't to be much interested in
her soul any OF the time.
When Mabel comes to always laugh lot
and we talk about spreads and the clubs and
my stories and MabePs patents-the she is going
DO have tb. when shes ts ,s. and what shes going
put on wrapper at night and sit down before the
open. fire with your feet the fcnder-wafm and
comfy and rested-and my moral nature sumbers If
Maudic Joyce said Lets cut lessons Tomorrow and
sneak into town and have tea and cakes and lam at
Robe ID be 50 surprised ia fall fall of my chair
dreadful it was to break the rules and what it would
do to the soul and we wouldn't go.
But if Mabel Blossom said it, somehow it would seem
diferent-as if needed exercise, you know and
nourishment. and the mind must not be overtaxed
Peters knew wy what was d sng I'd be at Roberts
spread thcm and laughing at the funny things Mabel
said: I'd hardly even remember that it was wicked
until of the girls stroled in and caught
us, and way back to St. Katharine
on the trolley seeing fine clusters of brches by the
shadows that seemed like Sister irmngarde's black
VEIL and listening to the little moaning winds among
the trees like the voices of nuns discouraged over
Isn't that pretty way to describe the way our guilty
eonScsnss' work as we go home through the woods a
sHeh things but i'' don't the gee d' on
skip them. in his haste to get at the story For we
are now coming to the story, though Mabel says she
mos. never would
Mabel came to one day in October looking i'm
portant She found me sitting under a willow on the
bank of the river that flows through the convent
grounds. | had Shakespeare in one hand and tn.
Bible in the other, for am forming my literary sty,
on them was feeling dreadfully depressed becais,
I couldn't decide whether to keep to one of then
alone, or make my style mixture Of both You car
imagine how unsettling and mournful that was will
lot of dead autumn leaves the ground, too.
wasn't bit glad to Mabel. | would have enjoyed
= Maudie more just then, for my soul couldn't hav,
felt any worse than it did. But, of course moved
over on the bench so Mabel could sit down, though
I laid aside my books with visible reluctance" thu
way heroines do in stories. Mabel didn't mind Sh
never does Her soul is not sensitive like mine ant
she was just bursting with plan.
'May Iverson,' she said edo you want a new cx
pcrencs--the kind you've never had before'"
| did. l always did, and right well did Mabel Bios
som know it, She fixed me with her gtteiing eye
) lla the ancient mariner.