At the Foot of the Rainbow | Page 7

and ten times the money I had
at command never could have put back the face of nature as I knew it
on that land."
As a child the author had very few books, only three of her own outside
of school books. "The markets did not afford the miracles common
with the children of today," she adds. "Books are now so numerous, so
cheap, and so bewildering in colour and make-up, that I sometimes
think our children are losing their perspective and caring for none of
them as I loved my few plain little ones filled with short story and
poem, almost no illustration. I had a treasure house in the school books
of my elders, especially the McGuffey series of Readers from One to
Six. For pictures I was driven to the Bible, dictionary, historical works
read by my father, agricultural papers, and medical books about cattle
and sheep.
"Near the time of my mother's passing we moved from Hopewell to the
city of Wabash in order that she might have constant medical attention,
and the younger children better opportunities for schooling. Here we
had magazines and more books in which I was interested. The one
volume in which my heart was enwrapt was a collection of
masterpieces of fiction belonging to my eldest sister. It contained `Paul
and Virginia,' `Undine,' `Picciola,' `The Vicar of Wakefield,' `Pilgrim's
Progress,' and several others I soon learned by heart, and the reading

and rereading of those exquisitely expressed and conceived stories may
have done much in forming high conceptions of what really constitutes
literature and in furthering the lofty ideals instilled by my parents. One
of these stories formed the basis of my first publicly recognized literary
effort."
Reared by people who constantly pointed out every natural beauty,
using it wherever possible to drive home a precept, the child lived
out-of-doors with the wild almost entirely. If she reported promptly
three times a day when the bell rang at meal time, with enough clothing
to constitute a decent covering, nothing more was asked until the
Sabbath. To be taken from such freedom, her feet shod, her body
restricted by as much clothing as ever had been worn on Sunday, shut
up in a schoolroom, and set to droning over books, most of which she
detested, was the worst punishment ever inflicted upon her she declares.
She hated mathematics in any form and spent all her time on natural
science, language, and literature. "Friday afternoon," writes Mrs. Porter,
"was always taken up with an exercise called `rhetoricals,' a misnomer
as a rule, but let that pass. Each week pupils of one of the four years
furnished entertainment for the assembled high school and faculty. Our
subjects were always assigned, and we cordially disliked them. This
particular day I was to have a paper on `Mathematical Law.'
"I put off the work until my paper had been called for several times,
and so came to Thursday night with excuses and not a line. I was told
to bring my work the next morning without fail. I went home in hot
anger. Why in all this beautiful world, would they not allow me to do
something I could do, and let any one of four members of my class who
revelled in mathematics do my subject? That evening I was distracted.
`I can't do a paper on mathematics, and I won't!' I said stoutly; `but I'll
do such a paper on a subject I can write about as will open their foolish
eyes and make them see how wrong they are.'"
Before me on the table lay the book I loved, the most wonderful story
in which was `Picciola' by Saintine. Instantly I began to write.
Breathlessly I wrote for hours. I exceeded our limit ten times over. The
poor Italian Count, the victim of political offences, shut by Napoleon
from the wonderful grounds, mansion, and life that were his, restricted
to the bare prison walls of Fenestrella, deprived of books and writing
material, his one interest in life became a sprout of green, sprung, no

doubt, from a seed dropped by a passing bird, between the stone
flagging of the prison yard before his window. With him I had watched
over it through all the years since I first had access to the book; with
him I had prayed for it. I had broken into a cold sweat of fear when the
jailer first menaced it; I had hated the wind that bent it roughly, and
implored the sun. I had sung a paean of joy at its budding, and
worshipped in awe before its thirty perfect blossoms. The Count had
named it `Picciola'--the little one--to me also it was a personal
possession. That night we lived the life of our `little one' over again,