Year: 1874

churn and sell the butter for a good
price, and 1 could raise chickens and
sell eggs; and the product of the gar
den was no small item, but 1 didn't like
slavish toll, / didn't want a freckled
face and sunburnt hands and a stou,
waist.


1t was easy work to write stories
surely anybody could do that love
stories were always read with a relish,
and, Judging from the abundance OF
them, they were marketable enough.
l consulted no one. / WANTED to sur.
prise my husband some day 1 wanted
he should find himself famous as the
husband of the distinguished Mrs.,
the new star that had arisen in the Lit.
erary horizon.


My children were very troublesome,
the baby was teething; found that
could not write love-stories and hea,
them crying, and fighting, and falling
and humping their heads. / baked q
jar full of sugar cakes, and made some
molasses taffy, and drove spike in the
joists overhead and put up swing OBJ
it, and did everything could one day
that 1 might commence my literary
career on the following morning.
likewise sent to neighbor's to borrow
her little poor house girl to tend the
children and be company for them.


In the morning 1 went to my bedroom
upstairs to begin my work. 1 had laid
the plot of my story in the night, while
my husband was snoring obviously by
my side.


My plot was beautiful. Gustavus LIE
Claire, runner for city firm, was to
fall In love with lovely girl, an Or
phan, Melissa Melsina, the neice of the
landlady at the village hotel, where
Gustavus had stopped for a few days.
His friends were to oppose the mar
riage, and use all their influence against
the proposed union. She was to pine,
and be sent away to her grandmother s;
letters were to be intercepted he was
to cut his throat with a razor, and be
discovered in time to be restored to
life. A tobacco firm were to employ
him as runner on a new route that
would carry him away in an opposite
direction. In time he was to forget her
and marry another, and, at the close of
a long life, fall into abject poverty, and
be assisted by his former sweetheart.
He was to recognize her by mark on
her wrist, and she was to recognize him
by lock of red hair that grew on the
side of his head. He was to die in her
sheltering arms, murmuring "Thine
thine only u


knew if 1 could grow inspired while
writing, that this plot would work a
thrilling tale, and my humble name
would become a househould word in
my native land, and my fertile pen
would be resource of pleasure and Of
profit.


L wrote two days, stopping to cook
the three meals, rising early, churning
after the family were abed, baking bis
cult to save baking bread, spreading up
the beds instead of making them,
sweeping in a temporary manner, and
cutting the children instead of coaxing
them. All this 1 did with my brows
drawn in a thoughtful mood, and my
pencil sticking above my ear.


The third day 1 wrote, Harry, my
baby fell downstairs and struck his
forehead on the rough stone wall, and
cut cash through to the skull. An
italian was in the kitchen with his little
shoulder-stand full of gay nick-nacks,
and Harry was hurrying down to see
them. After he had cried himself to
sleep, and 1 had recovered from my
faint and fright. resumed the pen.


When he awoke he was unusually
fretful, and 1 tried to keep him with
me. L gave him my slippers, and my
comb and brush, and little silver bell,
and everything that could possibly
amuse him for even a minute at time.


Just when my story was reaching its
acme. the baby wearied of all things,
and kicked and cried most piteously.


How could 1 come down from the
delectable heights of fancy and tend a
mortal child, when the children of my
brain, my immortal darlings, clamored
for my undivided attention The
thought was Notifying, aggravating-
how could 1 soar with all these human
ties tugging at my heart?


1 looked all around me to devise a
newerplaything. Asmall mirror seemed
to recommend itself. l held it before
the baby, and he laughed aloud, while
the tears like dewdrops hung on his
long lashes.


"See baby I" / said, "see baby !"
/ sat him down on the floor and placed
the mirror before him, so he could bend
forward and look into it. He shouted
in his rare glee. l resumed my story,
occasionally peeping over my shoulder
and saying: ''He sees baby sees a
baby !"


After while l looked around, thankful
/ had found a plaything that pleased
Harry, and / discovered him very de-
liberately sitting on it, peeping over
first at one side then the other, to see
how nearly it adapted itself to his
ample proportions. The glass was
broken into Thousand of pieces, and
he sat there as delighted as boy who
has mounted a fractious colt for the
first time. He crowed, he tried to tip
up his heels into the air, and he threw
back his head as though he was tossing
a flowing name. / really believe the
little human baby, with touch OF the
bully spirit that often comes with ma
ture growth, thought he had that other
fellow down, and that after some fashion
or manner he was little man victori-
GUS.


At last, after much tribulation, my
tender love story was written, revised.
copied, punctuated carefully, put INTO
an envelope without rolling or folding
and sent off. Because it was a first
attempt, 1 affixed to it the modest price
of fifteen dollars.


Elated by the success that l was sure
would attend my first effort, L wrote
another story, called "My Grandmoth-
er's Prophecy. The grandmother was
a superstitious old lady, and, following
the bent of her whins, she prophesled
over every event that transpired. One
of her granddaughters came suddenly
upon a nest of eggs under the hlacs,
and the old lady said that it was an in
fallible sign that she would receive an
offer of marriage unexpectedly. The
offer did come in very droll, dry, bus.
iness. like way from a renovated old
widower in blue silk crayat. 1 thought