Norwich bulletin., 1913-09-11
THE GREAT DEAD AUTHORS MASTERPIECE.

lis net only the great mans best, but
 the greatest, best stery ever written by
 man. It was hers, all hers, her very l own Just the kind of story she liked, which left her glad and sad, over which she knew net whether to laugh or cry, and SC did beth. She hid 1t away and went downstairs, as in g dream. Meth | CT gave her 13 kisses and 8 dollar. Dad gave heE> kiss and 13 dollars, teld her what 8 big girl she was as if she had grown greatly over night, and asked
 her as If she been the boy she ought 1 to have been, what she was going to | be when she grew up.
 "A great writer, dad. like MT. De Plume"
 I That unlucky year dad died and Hull dah took to verse. The next year died ] the great writer, and she went back to prose, to the reality of story writing. On her 18th birthday her mother had 15 kisses to give her but no dollar. l Never mind, mother" Huldah com forted. TT know how we can make 1 noney-~lots and lots!"
 Indeed! How?"
 | Huldah confessed her greatness. Had
 not Sir Hubert praised her maiden ef- fort of two years ago?
 This woman of half thirty kept her
 maiden effort the great mans praise, and his masterpiece, profound secrets. | She showed but her own latest and best work as proof that she knew how money was to be made.
 ] For six months with infinite patience, 1 painstaking, Huldah worked, writing rewriting, and sending out stories. Her 1 last story was ever her best Yet in- stead of lots and lots of money, she 1 had nothing but unhideable rejection 1 slips and deephidden heartaches to show for her half-year of work 1 Despair sick one day, hope-weu the next, Huldah wrote and rewrote sent lnlt nd aTf Ctn ftnYs .tC rJ
 when she was a sad old woman of six ! teen made her first big sacrifice: The ] story that had won her praise indeed
 she sold-for five dollars!
 ! Let mother love tell all the white i lies anent physical hunger it has a
 mind to, however we'll starvation agree with genius, five dollars for two goes but a short way Within week the man of the family had a question of l food to answer and that quick. Here's how she answered it:
 She took out her treasure, the story l the great man had written for her. whose very existence she had never ] breathed to a soul, typed it, handling ! the precious manuscript with more than religious care, comparing over and over again her copy with his orig l inal, to make sure that no single com
 ma, was out of place, and sent the story of stories to the editor of a big magazine, a man credited with being a critic of incest discernment. Instead of Nom de Plume Genius Place, Seventh Heaven" In the upper 1 left-hand corner of the first page of the masterpiece, the child put her own
 name and address. What a check he
 would send her. what a letter he would
 write her, full of praise, free of the
 bias that so easily besets the most dis
 eliminating of men! He would ask
 for another such story. Then she would
 'fnSS tell him that 0tb bar
 story could be written now, no not one; that the praise he had given her. the small unknown living woman, was for the great known dead man; point out what unconscious sweet self praise
 it was, proving how nice an eye he had, how well he knew great story when
 he saw one. The editor critic would smile, more than satisfied with her apology and his discerning self,
 ; Came a day when they lacked even windfalls. That lean day the catastro-
 phe fell-in the shape of a heavy en-
 velope. The critic-e editor had sent the story of stories back together with a,
 formal rejection slip which was nc reflection on the literary merits of the great dead writer's masterpiece where ! of the big magazine was in no present need.
 The bottom dropped out of Huldahs g
 universe; she felt herself falling as in
 nightmare through endless appalling l space, drifting in chaos without a thing
 to tie to. The step from the sublime 1 to the ridiculous had been taken for | her. She forgot or did not know that , the editor demigod does not read every
 manuscript submitted to him and that
 1t is but human for his overworked ! readers" to err in judgement All she knew, remembered was that her sacri- ] flee had been in vain, her very own sacred story. read by profane eyes and
 of prOfdne hands rejected.
 : Six months later a grown up Huldah
 got $500 for her birthday gift, and her self before the public. After serv- ing awhile as librarian of a little town
 in California, together with her mother she made the inevitable pilgrimage to 1 New York, leaving an irrecovera ble
 something behind. Her stories are now widely read. They show less imitation
 of the master than did the earlier weaker ones. Through a great grief Huldah has come to her own Feted accepted of editor, critic, public, she looks back with longing, regret. over the lean years when she fed on praise from Sir Hubert, the which is praise indeed.-Harry Cowell, in San Fran cisco Argonaut.
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