New-York tribune., 1920-05-30
Could Your Child Do It?

ciiIiu controversy, as
capable as Daisy Ashford's of de-
hghtfully raging over the teacups
and campfres, promises to bless the
coming summer.
The heroine is the six-year-old
Opal Whiteley, author of a diarv
now running in The Atlantic
Monthly. All the experience with
Daisy Ashford-and did she not get
married to clinch it fnally?-seems
to have made no impression on the
confirmed doubters. Just as thew
were certain last year that no young
ster OF nine could construct a plot SO
full of dramatic niceties and SO guile
fully satirical, so this year they are
certain that no six-year-old could
have written these chronicles, so rich
IN classic lore, SO we'll sustained in
narrative interest, and, above all. SO
extensive that the mere physical
labor involved would be worthy of p
highly systematized author of best
sellers.
Opal can be explained only by
her own story. From her CANCEL
Father and Mother" she had her in
tellectual heritage and two treasured
copy books in which the young par
ents had written the names of great
people and bits of history and poetry
which they evidently intended for
the skeleton Of the child's education.
From infancy they had bred in her
the habit of recording when she
came home from a walk in the woods
the what, where, why, when and
how of everything she had done and
seen.
When the angel Father and
Mother' were swept from her in an
unremembered tragedy the little girl
was brought up by the Whiteleys in
a Pacific Coast lumber camp. Lonely
and unloved, she turned to the barn
yard and the woods for friends
The copy book supplied their names
thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus,
the most dear wood rat Brave Hora-
thus, the shepherd dog, and Eliza
beth Barrett Browning, COW.
Probably it is unfair to expect Of an
overWorked mother of large fam
lily IN lumber camp that she should
be the appreciative guardian of a
enid who stopped to chatter with
squirrels when sent for the milk and
let Peter Paul Rubens out Of his pen
whenever he did grunt the grunts
which meant he had "wishes to 90 on
explores" At all events, the spank
ings Of Opal had a large influence on
her literary output.
Here, under the bed, now print"
is the naive conclusion to her most
exciting chapters; and she seems to
have been most inspired when "the
back part of me is a little sore"
The editor says he has taken no
liberty with the printed manuscript,
save occasionally to alter the spell
ing for the convenience of the reader.
owe gather that Opal had three
years disadvantage of Daisy Ash
ford in the matter of spelling. as
we'll as the Indifference of the trulv
poetic temperament.) Perhaps if
this had not been done it would be
less difficult to believe in the six
year-old author. Parents of normal
children, whose diaries even at
more mature age contain only such
narratives as event to school. Had
chicken for dinner Played" have
protested to the editor that
the story is unbelievable.
But The Atlantic, most Bostonian
of all Bostonian things, has given its
word and stands up for Opal. In
answer to persistent doubters the
June number says "once more with
emphasis that the diary is printed,
word for word, except for changes of
names and omissions, as the child
wrote it, and that the original manu-
script has been submitted over and
over again to rigid and competent
scrutiny"