Polly Olivers Problem | Page 2

artistic and colonial effect, while not a stone's throw
away, at the foot of a precipitous bank, flows--in a very irregular
channel--the picturesque Saco River.
In this summer home Mrs. Wiggin has the companionship of her
mother, and her sister, Miss Nora Smith, herself a writer, which renders
it easy to abandon herself wholly to her creative work; this coupled
with the fact that she is practically in seclusion banishes even a thought
of interruption.
And now, what was the beginning and the growth of the delightful
literary faculty, which has already given birth to so many pleasant
fancies and happy studies, especially of young life? A glimpse is given
in the following playful letter and postscript from herself and her sister
to a would-be biographer.
MY DEAR BOSWELL,--I have asked my family for some incidents of
my childhood, as you bade me,--soliciting any "anecdotes,"
"characteristics," or "early tendencies" that may have been, as you
suggest, "foreshadowings" of later things.
I have been much chagrined at the result. My younger sister states that I
was a nice, well-mannered, capable child, nothing more; and that I
never did anything nor said anything in any way remarkable. She
affirms that, so far from spending my childhood days in composition,
her principal recollection of me is that of a practical stirring little
person, clad in a linsey woolsey gown, eternally dragging a red and
brown sled called "The Artful Dodger." She adds that when called upon

to part with this sled, or commanded to stop sliding, I showed certain
characteristics that may perhaps have been "foreshadowings," but that
certainly were not engaging ones.
My mother was a good deal embarrassed when questioned, and finally
confessed that I never said anything worthy of mention until I was quite
"grown up;" a statement that is cheerfully corroborated by all the
authorities consulted. . . . Do not seek, then, to pierce my happy
obscurity. . . .
Believe me, dear Bozzy, Sincerely your Johnson, (K. D. W.)
Postscript by Johnson's Sister,--
The above report is substantially correct, though a few touches of local
color were added which we see Johnson's modesty has moved her to
omit.
My sister was certainly a capable little person at a tender age,
concocting delectable milk toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, and
generally making a very good Parent's Assistant. I have also visions of
her toiling at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a nice
old-fashioned little girl in a story book; and in connection with the
linsey woolsey frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a blue and
white hood with a mass of shining fair hair escaping below it, and a
pair of very pink cheeks.
Further to illustrate her personality, I think no one much in her
company at any age could have failed to note an exceedingly lively
tongue and a general air of executive ability.
If I am to be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of budding
authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months only), and a
devotion to reading.
Her "literary passions" were the Arabian Nights, Scottish Chiefs, Don
Quixote, Thaddeus of Warsaw, Irving's Mahomet, Thackeray's Snobs,
Undine, and the Martyrs of Spain. These volumes, joined to an old

green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were the
chief of her diet.
But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a
certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"--not so called
because it took the prize, alas! but because it competed for it.
There is also a myth in the household (doubtless invented by my
mother) that my sister learned her letters from the signs in the street,
and taught herself to read when scarcely out of long clothes. This may
be cited as a bit of "corroborative detail," though personally I never
believed in it.
Johnson's Sister, N. A. S.
Like many who have won success in literature, her taste and aptitude
showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take Polly Oliver's
Problem as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following
of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs.
Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a story,
Half a Dozen Housekeepers, which was published in St. Nicholas in the
numbers for November and December, 1878. She was living at the time
in California, and more to the purpose even than this bright little story
was the preparation she was making for her later successes in the near
and affectionate study of children whom she was teaching. She studied
the kindergarten methods for a year under Emma Marwedel, and after
teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College, she was called upon to
organize in San Francisco the first free kindergarten