Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the great literary center of our country in the middle fifty years of the nineteenth century. The Lake Region was such a center for English production in the preceding fifty years. In Wisconsin, naturally enough, the University has been the fountain from which has flowed much that is most worth-while in the literature of our state. It should be noted that not only those who are formally grouped here with the University as their center may justly be thought to be vitally indebted to that institution for the impulse to write. Among the authors first mentioned in this book, John Muir, Zona Gale, Mrs.

Willsie, and Professor Sanford all were students at the University, and no doubt were profoundly influenced by their Alma Mater.

The next most important source of inspiration to our authors seems to have been our rivers. The beautiful bluffs bordering the Mississippi; the charm and grace of the sweeping lines of Lake Pepin; the tumbling, rushing waters of the Wisconsin, with their thickly-wooded hills and their green slopes of prairie and their October sunsets, seen through crimson oak and maple leaves; or the numerous falls of the upper Fox,--all have stirred the hearts of the fortunate people privileged to live within their influence. Hence, at Stevens Point, La Crosse, Appleton, and a few other cities in the state with similar surroundings, we have a literature with charming local flavor.

Elsewhere we quote Mr. Howard M. Jones's "When Shall We Together," which faithfully depicts the "river feeling" of those who love the Father of Waters.

We desire to acquaint our readers, at this point, however, with a brief excerpt from what is perhaps the most careful and faithful depiction of the Mississippi itself,--Mr.

Merrick's "Old Times on the Upper Mississippi." The author lived for many years amid the scenes that he depicts, and for nine years was a pilot on an upper Mississippi boat. The romance and adventure of that life helped more to rouse and challenge the imagination than any other single feature of early pioneer days, and Mr. Merrick, though now what many would consider "pretty well along in years," is still young enough in the remembrance of those days. Like many another hard-working pioneer, he caught the spirit of his work, and he here has faithfully set down the most careful record of river annals in existence, from a historical standpoint, and at the same time one which grips the interest of the reader.

OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI

The recollections of a steamboat pilot from 1854 to 1863, by George Byron Merrick. Copyright, 1909, by the author. From Chapter XXX, pp. 241-247.

I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and doubted if I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. I filed an application for the first leave of absence I had ever asked for from the railroad company, and it was granted. I found a man to assist the "devil" in getting out my paper, he doing the editing for pure love of editing, if not from love of the editor. We set our house in order, packed our trunk and grips, and when the specified fortnight was ended, we (my wife, my daughter, and myself) were comfortably bestowed in adjoining staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary Morton," and I was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things" as I had been taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more.

The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers," driving them with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting in the "last"

packages of freight, which never reached the last. Among the rest, in that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork--a whole car load of it, which the "nigger" engine was striking down into the hold. Shades of Abraham! pork _out_ of St. Paul! Twenty years before, I had checked out a whole barge load (three hundred barrels) through from Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati was the great porkopolis of the world, while Chicago was yet keeping its pigs in each back yard, and every freeholder "made" his own winter's supply of pork for himself. The steward in charge of the baggage was always in the way with a big trunk on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers were trying their steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the waste cocks open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were coaxing the beds of coal into the fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared the tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers with the reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best," to others who had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels and boxes and scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes to the last receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the window ledge in the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood by the big bell, and listened for the "All ready, Sir!" of the mate. As the words were spoken, the great bell boomed out one stroke, the lines slacked away and were thrown off the snubbing posts. A wave of the captain's hand, a pull at once of the knobs of the wheel-frame, the jingle of a bell far below, the shiver of the boat as the great wheel began its work, and the bow of the "Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple of pulls at the bell-rope, and the wheel was revolving ahead; in a minute more the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up," and with full steam ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was again in the pilot house with my old chief, who bade me "show us what sort of an education you had when a youngster."

Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom Burns was the critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his pipe alight, a comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth and eyes, for all the world like the teacher of old.

The very first minute I met the swing of the gangplank derrick (there is no jack staff on the modern steamboat, more's the pity), with two or three strokes when one would have been a plenty, yawing the boat around "like a toad in a hailstorm," as I was advised. I could feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, just as it did twenty years before under similar provocation, when the eye of the master was upon me. I turned around and found that Mr. Burns had taken it in, and we both laughed like boys--as I fancy both of us were for the time.

But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it," and as the "Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very respectable wake; though Tom tried to puzzle me a good deal with questions as to the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten save in a general way....

A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the surface of the water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny Harris," on which I had spent so many months of hard work, but which, looked back upon through the haze of twenty years, now seemed to have been nothing but holiday excursions.

At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into the attic windows where with my brother I had so often in the night watches studied the characteristics of boats landing at the levee. Going ashore I met many old-time friends, among whom was Charles Barnes, agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who had occupied the same office on the levee since 1858, and had met every steam boat touching the landing during all those years. He was the Nestor of the profession, and was one of the very few agents still doing business on the water front who had begun such work prior to 1860. Since then, within a few years past, he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the performance of duties connected with the steamboat business.

Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff without stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and freight, and afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, kicked up by the high south wind that was still blowing. We landed under the lee of the sandpit at Lake City, and after getting away spent the better part of an hour in picking up a barge load of wheat, that was anchored out in the lake....

I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, listening to the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet above my face, and translating the familiar sounds that reached me from the engine-room and roof--the call for the draw at the railroad bridge, below the landing; the signal for landing at Wabasha; the slow bell, the stopping-bell, the backing bell, and a dozen or twenty unclassified bells, before the landing was fully accomplished; the engineer trying the water in the boilers; the rattle of the slice-bars on the sides of the furnace doors as the firemen trimmed their fires; and one new and unfamiliar sound from the engine-room--the rapid exhaust of the little engine driving the electric generator, the only intruder among the otherwise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses as a lullaby.

MRS. HATTIE TYNG GRISWOLD.

Hattie Tyng was born in Boston in 1840, and came with her parents to Columbus, Wisconsin, in 1850, where, in course of time, she was married to Mr. Griswold, and it was in this delightful village that much of her work as an author was done. Here she died in 1909.

The books by which she is best-known are: "Apple Blossoms,"

"Waiting on Destiny," "Lucile and Her Friends," and "The Home Life of Great Authors." It is from the last named book that our selection is taken. As its title would indicate, the book aimed to give a more personal and intimate view of men and women well-known to fame than is to be found in most reference works. The young readers of this volume will know that mere dates and statistics do not enable them to know people; they like to have some personal details as to the habits and daily lives of the people about whom they read.

Mrs. Griswold was so filled with the true teaching instinct that she realized this. She says in one of her works that since she had such a hard time when she was a little girl getting any picture in her mind of the great people about whom she read, that she determined to make it easier for other boys and girls to get these mental pictures; that is why she wrote "The Home Life of Great Authors."

JOHN G. WHITTIER

From "HOME LIFE OF GREAT AUTHORS." Copyright, 1886, A. C.

McClurg & Co.

The poet Whittier always calls to mind the prophet-bards of the olden time. There is much of the old Semetic fire about him, and ethical and religious subjects seem to occupy his entire mind. Like his own Tauler, he walks abroad, constantly

"Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea Breaking along an unimagined shore."

His poems are so thoroughly imbued with this religious spirit that they seem to us almost like the sacred writings of the different times and nations of the world. They come to the lips upon all occasions of deep feeling almost as naturally as the Scriptures do. They are current coin with reformers the world over. They are the Alpha and Omega of deep, strong religious faith. Whoever would best express his entire confidence in the triumph of the right, and his reliance upon God's power against the devices of men, finds the words of Whittier upon his lips; and to those who mourn and seek for consolation, how naturally and involuntarily come back lines from his poems they have long treasured, but which perhaps never had a personal application until now! To the wronged, the down-trodden, and the suffering they appeal as strongly as the Psalms of David. He is the great High Priest of Literature. But few priests at any time have had such an audience and such influence as he. The moral and religious value of his work can scarcely be overstated. Who can ever estimate the power which his strong words have had throughout his whole career in freeing the minds of other millions from the shackles of unworthy old beliefs? His blows have been strong, steady, persistent. He has never had the fear of man before his eyes. No man has done more for freedom, fellowship and character in religion than he. Hypocrisy and falsehood and cant have been his dearest foes, and he has ridden at them early and late with his lance poised and his steed at full tilt. Indeed, for a Quaker, Mr.

Whittier must be said to have a great deal of the martial spirit. The fiery, fighting zeal of the old reformers is in his blood. You can imagine him as upon occasion enjoying the imprecatory Psalms. In his anti-slavery poems there is a depth of passionate earnestness which shows that he could have gone to the stake for his opinions had he lived in an earlier age than ours. That he did risk his life for them, even in our own day, is well known. During the intense heat of the anti-slavery conflict he was mobbed once and again by excited crowds; but he was not to be intimidated by all the powers of evil, and continued to speak his strong words and to sing his inspiring songs, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear. And those Voices of Freedom, whatever may be thought of them by mere critics and litterateurs, will outlast any poems of their day, and sound "down the ringing grooves of Time" when much that is now honored has been forgotten. He will be known as the Poet of a great Cause, the Bard of Freedom, as long as the great anti-slavery conflict is remembered. He is a part, and an important part, of the history of his country, a central figure in the battalions of the brave. Those wild, stirring bugle-calls of his cheered the little army, and held it together many a time when the cause was only a forlorn hope, and they came with their stern defiance into the camp of the enemy with such masterful power that some gallant enemies deserted to his side. They were afraid to be found fighting against God, as Whittier had convinced them they were doing. There is the roll of drums and the clash of spears in these stirring strains; there are echoes from Thermopylae and Marathon, and the breath of the old Greek heroes is in the air; there is a hint of the old Border battle-cries from Scotland's hills and tarns; from Jura's rocky wall we can catch the cheers of Tell; and the voice of Cromwell can often be distinguished in the strain.

There is also the sweep of the winds through the pine woods, and the mountain blasts of New England, and the strong, fresh breath of the salt sea; all tonic influences, in short, which braced up the minds of the men of those days to a fixed and heroic purpose, from which they never receded until their end was achieved. It has become the fashion in these days of dilettanteism to say that earnestness and moral purpose have no place in poetry, and small critics have arisen who claim that Mr. Whittier has been spoiled as a poet by his moral teachings. To these critics it is only necessary to point to the estimation in which Mr. Whittier's poetry is held by the world, and to the daily widening of his popularity among scholars and men of letters, as well as among the people, to teach them that this ruined poetry is likely to live when all the merely pretty poetry they so much admire is forgotten forever. The small poets who are afraid of touching a moral question for fear of ruining their poems would do well to compare Poe, who is the leader of their school and its best exponent, with Mr. Whittier, and to ask themselves which is the more likely to survive the test of time. Let them also ponder the words of Principal Shairp, one of the finest critics of the day, when he says of the true mission of the poet, that "it is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear witness to the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility that lies hid, often obscured, in human souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected truths, for noble and oppressed persons, for down-trodden causes; and to make men feel that through all outward beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is addressing them." They would do well also to ponder the words of Ruskin, who believes that only in as far as it has a distinct moral purpose is a literary work of value to the world.

ALBERT H. SANFORD.

Professor Albert H. Sanford, of the La Crosse State Normal School, is best known as an author of text books and pamphlets on history and related subjects. But he is, like all the other school men whose works are represented here, interested in other fields besides his specialty.

Born in the southwestern part of Wisconsin, he naturally became interested in farming, and in the development of agriculture in the agricultural section. From this interest and his natural bent toward anything historical grew his desire to picture briefly and attractively the development of this most important industry of our country from its early beginnings in colonial times to the present day. His book is filled with narratives and expositions which will hold the interest of any boy or girl who likes to read stories of adventure or trial, of hardship, and of final success.

The most noteworthy feature of Professor Sanford's style is clarity, coupled with logical sequence and organization. The brief selection here given illustrates these qualities, and represents very fairly the remainder of the book.

THE STORY OF AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES

Copyright, 1916, by D. C. Heath & Co. From Chapter X.

When farms were scattered, life became lonely and monotonous; the people therefore took advantage of every possible occasion to have social gatherings. House raisings and log-rollings gave opportunity for such meetings. The women met in sewing and quilting bees and apple-parings; the men came for the evening meal and remained for the country dance. The husking-bee was the most exciting of these events.

The long pile of corn was divided equally between two leaders, who first "chose sides" for the contest. Then the men fell to the work with a will, each side determined to finish its portion first.

Sometimes the rivalry ran into rough play and even fighting; but the spirit of good nature prevailed at the supper that had been prepared by the women in the meantime.

To these "frolics" were added, in later years, the spelling matches and singing schools, attended by both old and young. The coming of the backwoods "circuit rider" to hold a religious service in some log cabin or in the schoolhouse was an event of importance. The summer "camp meetings" were attended by hundreds of families, and here a chance was given for those who had forgotten the ways of civilized life in the midst of the rough frontier conditions to be "converted"

and to return to better ways. The preaching, singing, and praying were all done by main strength, both of voice and of muscle.

The frontier farmer boy had no lack of occupation. He split the kindling and the wood for the fire-place and gathered the chips used for lighting the cabin when tallow dips were scarce. He fed and drove the cows, but let his sister do the milking. He took part in the work of washing and shearing the sheep. He helped in churning and soap-making, and ran the melted tallow into the tin candle-molds. He looked forward to butchering day as to a celebration. In the fall he chopped the sausage meat and the various ingredients of mince pies. On stormy days and winter evenings he might help his mother clean and card the wool, wind the yarn, and hetchel flax. Later she might call upon him for help in dyeing the homespun and bleaching the linen.

The boy was useful to his father when he searched the woods for good trees from which special articles were to be made, such as ax-helves and ox-yokes. From hickory saplings he could make splint brooms and cut out the splints used in making chair bottoms and baskets. He guarded the corn fields from squirrels and crows and set traps for wolves. He went on horse-back to the grist mill, which was generally some miles away, and waited there for his turn to have his sack of corn ground into meal. Along with these duties were some pleasures, such as going nutting and berrying and hunting for grapes. Bee-hunting gave its rich reward in the hollow trunk full of honey. "Sugaring off"

twice in the spring was a special time of delight, though it brought its tasks in the making of wooden spouts, the carrying of buckets of sap and water, and the tending of fires.

CHARLES D. STEWART

Charles D. Stewart was born at Zanesville, Ohio, in 1868, and came with his people to Wisconsin when but a young boy. He received his elementary education in the public schools of Milwaukee, after which he attended Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam. Like many others of our authors, Mr. Stewart has had considerable connection with newspapers, but it is as an author of stories, poems, and critical articles, both in magazines and in published volumes, that he is best known.

Perhaps the readers of this book are already familiar with his "The Fugitive Blacksmith," "Partners of Providence,"

"Essays on the Spot," "The Wrong Woman," etc. He is now executive clerk in Governor Philipp's office.