Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown Part 15

So ends the, perhaps, most famous historic ghost story of modern times.

Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin.

(JENNIE M. DRINKWATER.)

Mrs. Conklin has been a voluminous writer of novels and stories, published by Robert Carter & Brothers and by the Presbyterian Board. Before her marriage she was widely known as Miss Jennie M. Drinkwater, and her latest book, "Dorothy's Islands," published in Boston, August, 1892, bears that name of authors.h.i.+p. She has written for many papers and magazines, besides the books she has published, and of these there are twenty and more. Among them are "Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline", a love story of high order and well told; "Rue's Helps", for boys and girls, and "Electa", in which we find a certain quality of naturalness in the people, and the scenes described,--a literary quality which is prominent in Mrs. Conklin's works.

"They introduce the reader", says a critic, "to agreeable people, provide an atmosphere which is tonic and healthful and enlist interest in every page." Then there are "The Story of Hannah Marigold"; "Wildwood"; "The Fairfax Girls"; "From Flax to Linen" and "David Strong's Errand", besides others, and the last one published to which we have referred, and from which we shall quote.

Several years ago, Mrs. Conklin being out of health, had her attention called to the special needs of invalids for sympathy from the active world about them, and organized a society, now world-wide and well-known, called the "Shut-In Society". It is an organization of invalids throughout the country, and now extending beyond it, who cheer each other with correspondence, send letters to prisoners in jails and sufferers in hospitals, and do other good work. Nine-tenths of its members.h.i.+p never see each other, but they help make each other's lives to be as cheery as possible in affliction. The amount of comfort and consolation carried by this organization to many a bed-ridden or helpless invalid, is beyond description, and the good that goes out also from those quiet chambers of sickness to the souls who seek them, mostly by _letter_, is greater than would be easily imagined. Mrs. Conklin was president of the Society for four years from its organization in 1885, and it now numbers several thousand members.

We quote from "Dorothy's Islands", Mrs. Conklin's latest book.

Dorothy was a child taken from a New York orphan asylum and adopted by a lighthouse keeper and his wife. She grows up supposing them to be her own father and mother, but the mother and child are antagonistic, and it is impossible for them to attract one another. This peculiarity of nature is very well given in the first chapter.

EXTRACT FROM "DOROTHY'S ISLANDS."

"When I grow up," said Dorothy "I am going to find an island all green and beautiful in winter as well as in summer. All around it the sand will be as golden as suns.h.i.+ne, and the houses--the happy houses--will be hidden away in green things, and flowers of yellow and scarlet and white. And then, father, after I find it, I will come and get you, and we will sing, and learn poems, and do lovely things all day long."

"You are going to do wonderful things when you grow up," replied the amused, tender voice overhead.

"Don't all grown-up people do wonderful things?" questioned child Dorothy.

"I never did," answered the voice, not now either tender or amused.

"No, you never _did_," broke in a woman's voice with harsh force.

"I think father does _beautiful_ things," said Dorothy in her warm voice.

"He brought the sea-bird home to me, and we loved it so, but you threw it off with its wounded wing."

"Let nature take care of her own things," responded the voice that had nothing of love in its quality.

"I'm nature's thing," Dorothy laughed; "father said so to-day. He said I was made out of nature and poetry."

"It's he who puts the poetry in you; some day I'll send those poetry books adrift, and then you will both find something practical in your finger ends."

The child looked at the chubby ends of her brown fingers. Her nine-year-old hands, under her mother's sharp teaching, had learned to do many practical things. The only "practical thing" she loathed--and that was her own name for it--was mending Cousin Jack's pea-jacket.

One room in the lighthouse was packed with boxes containing her father's books. The "poetry box" was the only one that had been opened since their stay on the island.

"It was one of your father's beautiful things to strand us on this desert island. I told him I wouldn't come."

"But you _did_," said the child.

"It's the last time he will have his own way," remarked the woman, with the heavy frown that marred her handsome face.

"Oh, don't say that!" cried Dorothy distressed. "I never like your way."

"You have got to like my way some day, miss, or it will be the worse for one of us. Don't hang any longer around your father; poetry enough has oozed out of him to spoil you already; go and pick those beans over, and put them in soak for to-morrow--a quart, mind you, and pick them over clean."

She liked to pick beans when her father sat near reading aloud to her. He had promised to read to-night "How the water comes down from Lodore," but she knew her mother's mood too well to hope for such a pleasure to-night.

When her mother was cross, she wasn't willing for anybody to have anything.

But she couldn't take away what she had learned of it; the child hugged herself with the thought repeating gleefully:--

"Then first came one daughter, And then came another, To second and third The request of their brother, And to hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, With its rush and its roar--"

"Dorothy, stop!" commanded her mother. "That muttering makes me wild. It sounds like a lunatic."

Dorothy's mouth shut itself tight; the flash of defiance from the big brown eyes her mother missed; her father's observant eyes noted it. There was always a sigh in his heart for Dorothy, for her naughtiness, and for the misery she was growing up to. The misery was as inevitable as the growing up. Once in his agony he had prayed the good Father to take the child before her heart was rent, or his own.

After the gleeful music ceased the chubby fingers moved wearily, the brown head drooped; there were tears as well as sleep in the eyes that seemed made to hold nothing but suns.h.i.+ne.

(Dorothy is in bed for the night.)

"Will you keep the door open so I can hear voices?" pleaded Dorothy.

"Why child, what ails you?" said the mother.

"The wind ails me, and it is so black, black, black out over the water.

When I find my island there shall be suns.h.i.+ne on the sea."

"But night _has_ to come."

"Perhaps there will be stars there," said hopeful Dorothy.

"You may learn a Bible verse to-morrow,--'There shall be no night there.'"

"I'll say it now: 'There shall be no night there.' Where _is_ 'there'?"

But her mother had left her to her new Bible verse and the candle-light; and Dorothy went to sleep, hoping "there" did not mean heaven, for then what _would_ she do when she was sleepy?

Mrs. Catharine L. Burnham.

A valuable contributor to the literature for children and young people, is Mrs. Burnham. Her volume of "Bible Stories in Words of One Syllable", has been of great use and influence and has no doubt led to the writing of other historical narratives in the same manner.

Count Tolstoi gives a most interesting account of his own experience in the use of the Bible in teaching children. He says "I tried reading the Bible to them", speaking of the children in his peasant's school, "and it took complete possession of them. They grew to love the book, love study and love me. For the purpose of opening a new world to a pupil and of making him love knowledge before he has knowledge, there is no book like the Bible."

Mrs. Burnham has also written a number of children's story-books which have been warmly received and still continue to please and benefit the young.

Among them are "Ernest"; "The Story of Maggie" and the three volumes of the "Can and Can't Series"; "I Can"; "I Can't", and "I'll Try". "Ernest" is quite a wonderful little book and has done much good among a large cla.s.s of children. Mr. A. D. F. Randolph, the New York publisher, who took it through several editions, gave it high praise to a friend just before the last edition, about three years ago, and Rev. Dr. Tyng the elder, late of St. George's Church, New York, gave it also very high praise.

We do not always fully realize that a peculiar talent is required for this department in literature. In talking, some years ago, with a young man who has now become an important editor in New York, he said: "It is my greatest ambition to be a good and interesting author of children's books; not only because it requires the best writing and the best thought, but because no literature has a more extended influence and involves higher responsibilities."

In addition to these volumes, Mrs. Burnham has for many years, been an occasional contributor to the _Churchman_, _Christian Union_ and other important papers.