Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-06-04
THE RETURN OF FRANK R. STOCK.
TON.

small volume reacnlnR inc
Capital journal editorial
rooms a day or two ago. 1t
written by Miss Eta DeCamp, who
should have decamped before beginning
to write it. She modestly denies the
authorship, claiming to be only the hu
man amanuensis, the medium through
whom the late Frank r. Stockton, or
rather his spirit inflicted a few short
stories that he fortunately took with
him to the spirit world, but which seem
ed to be worrying him over in his new
habitat, wherever it may be. Miss De
Camp gravely tells how she was select
cd for the job 1t seems she was
school teacher and having read what
William II. Stead had written about au
tomato writing, she concluded to take
a whack at it herself. So Eta procur
ed pad of paper and pencil and sat
down with the paper before her, her
hand with the pencil in it, in position
for writing. She says she did not have
an idea of writing anything (Which is
evident in her work. but that suddenly
something happened. She felt thrill
90 from her shoulder to her finger tips,
and to her utter amazement the pencil
began to move, and tried evidently to
write. This same thing happened TO
her twice again, and the third time Et-
Ia plucked up her voice (the spirits were
already up) and sapiently remarked;
''If there is a spirit here who would
like to communicate with me, he must
write more legibly." From this we in
fer It was some deceased editor trying
10 do the writing, for that is the way
the linotype men have of talking 10
the editorial staff According to Eta s
story, however, it was an Indian spirit
that wanted to write, defunct warrior
who didn I know his A B C's while on
earth and whose name was the rather
unusual one in Indian romance, Black
foot Then Lafayette, she isn't sure
about it being the old genuine Lafe,
tried her out, but gave her up as a bum
stenog. Then Three Feathers, another
namo that doosn I show much original
ity in Etta's think tank, got case Of
cacoethes scribendi, but somehow failed
TO come through Her father tried his
hand next and sent her lots of messages
for her mother, but the other spirit
choked the old man off for some unac
countable reason. Finally one day /
couple or more spirits got hold Of he
hand and wrote, awe will bring yol
the spirit Of an author who wishes hi
stories written"
At the next sitting Etta's nervou
system got a shock when the spirit o
Frank r, Stockton got on the wireless
She felt a terrible pain in her head an
side, just like you viii II you read he
book, only you will feel them all owe,
This spirit frankly confessed that it O
he or whatever II was, was Frank I
Stockton, and that he had story h
wanted to write, and for her to take
down. The title was "What Did n
with My wifep Unfortunately tht
story is not in her book, so the questio
will have to remain forever manswe
cd Eta very conscientiously wrot
out the Stockton stories and hypnotic
blame fool publisher to spoil whit
papor, insult type and waste good priu
cr's ink in publishing them,
OF course we cannot doubt the lady
story, but we must confess that wha
ever spirit dictated those stories, an
made her believe It was that Of Fran
r. Stockton, certainly put one over q
Eta, and gave the Stockton spirit su
fcient grounds for criminal libel su
before whatever courts they have whe
ever he Is. There Is one feature abo,