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T H E Y E L LOW J O U R N A L I S M
 Medill School of Journalism
VISIONS of the AMERICAN PRESS

G eneral Editor
David Abrahamson

Other titles in this series

H erbert J.G ans
Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly
News, Newsweek, and Time
M aurine H .Beasley
First Ladies and the Press:The Unfinished Partnership of the Media Age
Patricia Bradley
Women and the Press:The Struggle for Equality
D avid A.C opeland
The Idea of a Free Press:The Enlightenment and Its Unruly Legacy
M ichael Sw eeney
The Military and the Press: An Uneasy Truce
Patrick S.W ashburn
The African American Newspaper:Voice of Freedom
T H E Y E L LOW J O U R N A L I S M
THE PRESS AND
A M E R I C A’ S E M E R G E N C E
AS A WO R L D P OW E R

David R. Spencer

Foreword by Geneva Overholser

MEDILL SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

Northwestern University Press

Evanston, Illinois
 Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu

Copyright © 2007 by David R. Spencer

Published 2007 by Northwestern University Press.
All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-0-8101-2331-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Spencer, David Ralph, 1941–.
The yellow journalism : the press and America’s emergence as a
world power/ David R. Spencer ; foreword by Geneva Overholser.
p. cm. — (Visions of the American press)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8101-2331-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Press—United States—History. 2. Journalistic ethics—United
States—History. 3. Journalists—United States—History. 4.
Sensationalism in journalism—United States—History. 5. Press—
Influence. I. Title. II. Series.
PN4864.S64 2007
071'3—dc22
2006025060

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ansiz39.48-1992.
To Judi
 CONTENTS

Foreword by Geneva Overholser

ix

Preface
xiii

One
Introduction
1

Two
The Inheritance
19

Three
The New York Marketplace
53

Four
Graphic Innovation
77

Five
Fact and Fiction
95
 Six
The Spanish-American War and the Hearst Myth
123

Seven
The Correspondents
153

Eight
The Illustrators
205

Nine
Conclusion
225

Notes
231

Bibliography
249

Index
257
 FOREWORD

Geneva Overholser

As vigorously and frequently as journalists are reviled today, they

can always find refuge in this comforting thought: at least they
don’t live in the era of (shudder!) Yellow Journalism. Nothing so says
“journalism evil” as this Victorian-era chapter of press history,
when publishing titans like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph
Pulitzer went head to head—with flamboyant and often irrespon-
sible results. But is this relief-by-comparison really justified? As
you read this insightful volume by David Spencer, do not be sur-
prised if the charges about Yellow Journalism ring familiar, for
they are the very charges favored by journalism’s twenty-first-
century critics: The blurring of fact and fiction. Hyperbole and
sensationalism. An overemphasis on the negative. The undermin-
ing of society’s essential institutions. And, perhaps most chilling of
all, the notion of journalism as mere commodity.
If Yellow Journalism has provided our era with a quiver full of
proven insults, it has given us much more besides. Indeed, it has
substantially shaped today’s press, for these Yellow journalists were
nothing if not innovators. As Spencer so ably shows us, they gave
us the modern newspaper—advertising-supported, rich with
graphics and photographs and lively writing, catering to the peo-
ple, competitive, aspiring to ever-greater success in the market-
place. To be sure, some of this inheritance feels lamentable. Take
commodification: however much they led the way, even Hearst
and Pulitzer would be amazed to see how crushingly commodified

ix
x FO R E WO R D

today’s press has become, giving Wall Street more say about the
future of a given newssheet than its readers could ever hope to
have.
But the legacy is more complex still. While we never utter the
words Yellow Journalism without distaste, it is worth considering
that Pulitzer’s own vow was to provide his readers with “Brilliant
Humor, Splendid Illustrations and Stories by the Greatest Au-
thors.” There’s a formula with merit. And those “great authors”
the era’s newspapers employed—writers like Stephen Crane, edi-
tors like Lincoln Steffens—did not save their best talents for the
books we now know them for. Steffens, as this volume notes, once
assigned a story about a man who hacked his wife to death, and
here is what he told the reporter: “That man loved that woman
well enough once to marry her, and now he has hated her enough
to cut her all to pieces. If you can find out just what happened be-
tween that wedding and this murder, you will have a novel for
yourself and a short story for me. Go on now, take your time and
get this tragedy as a tragedy.” Better advice than that I never gave
as an editor. The Yellow journalists had other appealing traits.
Think Nellie Bly’s brave tales from the Women’s Lunatic Asylum
in New York. Think newspapers competing with one another to
hand out bread to the needy. Think well-told tales, booming cir-
culation, and crusades on behalf of social reform. Hmmmm . . .
sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
Of course, we mustn’t skim lightly over the egregious sins of
Yellow Journalism: the warmongering, the screaming headlines,
the blatant sensationalism and woeful unfairness. But it does not
take subscribing to the worst of the many unfair charges hurled
against journalism today to acknowledge that our own media are
not all finely tuned instruments of noble betterment either, much
 FO R E WO R D xi

as we like to comfort ourselves with the distance between our

world and the Yellow one. I remember a session at a 1989 editors’
gathering on the topic of sensationalism. Our panel included Phil
Donahue, Morton Downey Jr., and Geraldo Rivera. I, by con-
trast, was one of the “respectable” journalists and all too proud of
it. Then the inimitable moderator, Fred Friendly, held up a copy
of my newspaper, the Des Moines Register. Across the front page ran
this teaser: “WAS CARY GRANT REALLY BISEXUAL?” I’ve been a lit-
tle less sure ever since about the dividing line between the virtu-
ous and the not so virtuous, journalistically speaking.
To a degree (and it probably was true in the Yellow Journalism
era, too), people find comfort in blaming the press for their own
appetites. The press in turn reassures itself that it cannot be faulted
for giving readers what they want, for it does, after all, want to be
read. And of course, the line between good and bad journalism is
unclear. Rich narrative to one reader is blurred fact to another,
and the headline that compels me to enter the story may strike you
as hopelessly hyped. But one thing is clear: the commitment to
serve the broader public good is no good at all without the tools
and talent to bring the individual along for the trip.
Now, here’s a happy thought: Yellow Journalism’s excesses
were offensive enough to help spawn, in direct response, some-
thing truly fine—the best newspaper in America, a model of dig-
nified and reliable journalism. The New York Times was born when
Adolph S. Ochs arrived from Chattanooga in 1896 to inject a very
different model into the tawdry New York City newspaper scene.
As the late Edwin Diamond noted in his book, Behind the Times,
Hearst was said to have wanted his New York Journal readers “to
look at page one and say ‘Gee Whiz,’ to turn to page two and ex-
claim ‘Holy Moses,’ and then at page three, shout ‘God
xii FO R E WO R D

Almighty!’” In contrast, Ochs’s sober credo was “All the News

That’s Fit to Print,” and he pledged “to give the news impartially
without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interest in-
volved.”
So here we are in the twenty-first century, and Yellow Journal-
ism’s counterparts are easily spotted, from one cable channel’s
frenzy to top the others on the latest blonde-gone-missing story to
the blogger-world’s mountains of invective. Yet we can take
heart. Out of Yellow Journalism’s excesses came a fine new model
of newspapering, and Pulitzer’s name is now linked with the best
work the craft can produce. And today, in what seems to some an-
other nadir for the press, new forms of media are springing up
everywhere. Who knows what models will prevail? We can hope
for new heights of fairness and balance and commitment to the cit-
izens’ needs. Throw in a little humor, splendid illustrations, and
killer writing talent and salvation could be right around the corner.
 PREFACE

Every summer when I finished teaching journalism history to

incoming graduate students, I used to take one morning to talk
with the class about where we had been and what we had done
during the semester. There was nothing really unusual about that
approach, save the fact that most of my colleagues set aside a whole
day to do exactly the same thing. So, I decided that press history
should have a different sort of climax. I created a library of films
that dealt with some aspect of journalism history and spent the final
day eating popcorn and downing sodas with the students while
showing them a feature film about the world, real or imaginary,
that they were going to enter. The films covered the works of Ben
Hecht, Orson Welles, Damon Runyon, and, of course, Robert
Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Although I had long been con-
vinced that my chosen field of research was one of the more in-
teresting aspects of my existence, I also realized that it was not
something I could take for granted with graduate students.
Through no fault of their own, the students had, at best, only a
limited knowledge of the history of journalism. Often, the fault,
as Edward R. Murrow so eloquently stated during his McCarthy
broadcast, lies within ourselves. What have we been doing all
these years to promote journalism history and make it one of the
most exciting courses of study in the university calendar? In some
cases, a lot; in others, not much. So, each of us, in our own way,
can contribute our blood, sweat, and tears to the cause, which is

xiii
xiv P R E FAC E

why I took on this project when approached by senior editor

David Abrahamson.
The Yellow Press was of particular interest to me, not because
I am a great fan of sensationalism but because the emergence of the
genre came at the tail end of one of the most exciting centuries in
the history of the world. All those things that had happened since
the invention of lithography came into force in the strange worlds
of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. We can certainly
look at those developments one by one, from the telegraph of
Samuel Morse in 1844, which fundamentally changed the way
news was gathered, to the creation of the telephone correspondent
by Charles Chapin on the eve of the twentieth century. What
started out as a collection of dots and dashes was available in real
language just over a half a century later.
During the Gilded Age, it seemed that every day would bring
a new invention to the world. Thomas Edison had not only cap-
tured sound on a wax cylinder, he had also experimented with
lighting city streets with something called electricity, and just for
good measure, he used his competitor’s invention of alternating
current in the world’s first electric chair. No one would make
more of an impact on the collection of news than an eccentric in-
ventor from Rochester, New York, named George Eastman,
whose invention of celluloid film provided a base for visual jour-
nalism and led to the creation of the motion picture. It also made
photography a critical player in the interpretation of important
events. Then along came Hearst and Pulitzer, who introduced
color in their Sunday supplements. The massive expansion of the
railway system gave newspaper owners and editors the impetus to
start seeing the country as one large media market, although it
would be many years before true national media would be in
place.
 P R E FAC E xv

Of course, one of the most critical developments was the lay-

ing of a transatlantic cable, which brought America to the world
and the world to America. The collapse of international obstacles
would give America yet one more impetus to play a major role on
the world stage. And the media would play host to the country’s
dreams and ambitions. They would indeed be the first witnesses to
history. Hearst and Pulitzer would be at the forefront of the drive
to make America a world power.
I have always been interested in storytelling. For the scholar,
the study of the Yellow Press is a gift in this respect. A number of
America’s better-known writers were journalists, some of whom
wrote in the late nineteenth-century scandal sheets. That commu-
nity included Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage
and Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, Ambrose Bierce, a columnist for
Hearst on the West Coast, and Mark Twain, who needs no intro-
duction. They saw the Yellow Press as a tuition-free postsec-
ondary school in which they could hone their skills in their pur-
suit of literary excellence. It is little wonder that truth often
suffered in this kind of environment.
One must ask whether the world really needs another book on
the Yellow Press. In my view, the response is emphatically yes. It
is true that other scholars, such as Sidney Kobre, W. Joseph Camp-
bell, and Ted Curtis Smythe, have studied this subject phenome-
nally well. The stories have been told as to how Hearst and
Pulitzer ended up in New York and founded a newspaper culture
that, in many respects, continues to function to this very day. My
volume would have to be different. I was not going to compete
with the basic premise that these authors used in their respective
works. So, what is so different about this book?
First of all, it is not a narrative history, as are most other works
on the Yellow Press. It deals with the evolving culture of Victo-
xvi P R E FAC E

rian journalism in America and how that culture was both adapted
and shaped by the Yellow Press, as well as the impact that culture
had on twentieth-century media. There will be no recounting of
the specific events of the Spanish-American War, although the
reasons expressed for the war by New York journalists and the
impact of the press on this conflict will be told. Further, there will
be a discussion on the role of visuals in the age of the Yellow Press
because both Hearst and Pulitzer relied on illustrations in their
journals as a key means to reach their target constituencies. This
volume is intended to complement the fine work already under-
taken on the Yellow Press.
As with any form of investigation, there is always a sense of ex-
citement when one unearths material that could make a difference
in the study in progress. One such discovery was a collection of
speeches by Pulitzer and Hearst alumnus Morrill Goddard, deliv-
ered in the mid-1930s in New York City. This man, reputed to
be the founder of the Yellow Journalism genre, gave an impas-
sioned defense of his role over a series of six evenings. His com-
plicity, if you will, was no longer in doubt.
And then, there were the great artists. I had searched for works
by Homer Davenport, Walt McDougall, the man who kept James
Blaine out of the White House, and Bob Carter and other edito-
rialists on the films containing both The New York Journal and The
World New York. I found a memoir written by Davenport in 1910
in which he painfully described his firing from the Portland Ore-
gonian, an event that led him to take a train to San Francisco,
where he was eventually retained by the San Francisco Examiner;
that position, in turn, would lead to a job in New York, where he
would find fame and fortune with Hearst at The New York Journal.
And finally, there was Richard Felton Outcault, creator of the first
 P R E FAC E xvii

comic strip, TheYellow Kid, which some believe gave Yellow Jour-
nalism its name. Outcault worked for both Hearst and Pulitzer be-
fore creating Buster Brown, a comic character who later became
synonymous with children’s shoes of the same name.
In the year and a half that this study took, I felt I had personally
gotten to know all of these characters. At the same time, friends
became more like strangers during this period, though they were
very tolerant of my work. Without their support together with
that of my wife, Judi, my colleagues at the University of Western
Ontario, and David Abrahamson, this volume would have been
far more difficult to complete. Enjoy the read.
D avid R .Spencer
 ONE

INTRODUCTION

When dismembered human remains floated to the surface of New

York City’s East River in June 1897, the publisher of The NewYork
Journal, a young, devil-may-care college dropout named William
Randolph Hearst, decided that his newspaper would beat the
city’s police department—the self-proclaimed “finest”—in dis-
covering the culprit or culprits who had perpetrated this heinous
crime. Pulling out all the stops, Hearst’s Murder Squad, a group of
investigative reporters, uncovered not only the identity of the
murderer but also a sordid extramarital affair involving the guilty.
The lurid descriptions of the untimely demise of a bathhouse
masseur that appeared in The New York Journal pushed the limits of
both credibility and social acceptability in those times. In a stroke
of opportunism, the Yellow Press had been born.
For Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, and scores of other editors and re-
porters across urban America who worked in the newspaper in-
dustry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, crime
reporting was a godsend. It tugged at the emotional heartstrings of
readers, and its violence and often graphic descriptions of the fate
of the deceased touched sensitive nerves in those who advocated

1
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 SITTING FOR MY PORTRAIT.

T he other day I was riding in an omnibus, when it got too full by

one little girl, whom I offered to take on my lap, as the mother
had her arms full of parcels. She sat for a moment on my knee with
her finger in her mouth, and head turned shyly away. Then she made
up her little mind to look round in my face, and see whether or no
she would continue to stay with me. I declare that I awaited that
scrutiny as bashfully as ever a timid lover did his maiden’s answer. I
actually felt the blood rushing up to my cheek, as the clear blue eyes
looked searchingly into mine, as if God himself were asking, “Lovest
thou me?”
Then the little thing turned her head away again, but not till she
had given me a warm, bright smile, by which I knew that her heart
knew no fear of me. I did not speak, because we understood each
other; I waited as one waits near a bush upon which a little humming
bird has alighted—fearful lest a breath should disturb it. By and by
she gave a careless glance out the omnibus window, and says—by
way of encouraging me—“There’s horses out there.”
“Yes,” said I.
She waited a few minutes longer—then finding me still apparently
bashful—she says—
“There’s shops out there.”
“Yes,” said I again.
Then she waited another while—and then turning her cunning
little face full upon me as if determined to make me speak, she says—
“Ain’t there many peoples out there?”
Now you may laugh—but that child’s favorable verdict, after
looking at me so intently, gave me more pleasure than I know how to
tell you; had she jumped down off my lap—I shouldn’t have dared to
face my looking-glass that day, lest some hateful passion, born of the
world’s strife, had written its satanic “Get thee behind me,” on my
face.
 ABOUT A JOURNEY I TOOK.

W hen I was a little girl, I disliked traveling, above all things; the
very idea of going away from the chimney-corner, gave me a
homesick feeling at once. I would rather have stayed all alone in the
house, than ridden off with the merriest party that ever wore
traveling dresses. I had a kind of cat-liking for my corner, and as I
always had plenty to think about, I was never troubled at being left
alone. Now, that I have girls of my own, I like “my corner” better
than ever, but I have changed about traveling, which I like very much
in pleasant company. By “traveling” I don’t mean going round the
country with heaps of dresses in big trunks, and parading up and
down on the piazza of a hotel, to show them off. Not at all. I mean
that I like to take as few changes of garments as I can possibly get
along with, and putting on some very plain dress, which it will not
fret me to have trod on, and rained on, and powdered with dust, with
a nice book or two in my trunk, in case of a rainy day, start off to see
what beautiful things nature has hidden away for those of her
children who love to search them out. In this way, I started last
summer to make the trip of the Northern lakes. That was something
new for me. I had seen Niagara, and the Catskills, and been to
Saratoga, Lake George, and all the places where people usually go in
the summer months; now I wanted something entirely different. I
found it in Toronto; and the difference, I am sorry to say, did not
please me. The city wore to me a very dilapidated and tumble-down
air; the houses, with scarcely an exception, looked streaked and
shabby; pigs ran loose about the streets, and over the plank
sidewalks. Now and then I saw a handsome private carriage, or a
large hotel-looking house; but the high walls about the grounds
looked forbidding, gloomy and unsocial; not a peep was to be had of
the pretty flowers behind, if indeed there were any. In that it seemed
to me a very desolate kind of place; and the mammoth hotel where
we stayed, with its immensely high, wide halls, echoing back the
footsteps of the few travelers who walked through them, to their
large, dreary, immense rooms, seemed to make me still gloomier. For
all that, the people whom I met in the street had fine broad chests,
and a healthy color in their faces, and looked out of their clear bright
eyes as if life were a pleasant thing to them; as I doubt not it is. Still, I
would rather not live in Toronto; and after spending two days in it, I
was very willing to get into the cars, and rush through the backwoods
country, on my way to Detroit. Such splendid trees as I saw in those
backwoods! I could only think of the “cedars of Lebanon,” tall,
straight, green columns of foliage, that looked as if they had grown,
and would continue to grow hundreds of years. Nestled under them,
were now and then rude log huts. In the doorway stood the stately
mother with her bronzed face, and clinging to her skirts, rosy little
barefooted children, rugged as the wild vine that twisted its arms
round the huge trees before their door.
Near by, stood their father, the woodman, resting on his ax, to look
at the cars, as the shrieking whistle sent the cattle bounding through
the clearing, and the train disappeared, leaving only a wreath of
smoke behind. And so on, for miles and miles through that bright
day, we never wearied of gazing till the sun went down. Once I
caught a glimpse of a tiny log hut, the low roof festooned with
morning glories—pink, blue, and white. I cannot tell you what a look
of refinement it gave the little place, or how pretty a little, curly,
golden-haired girl, in a red frock, and milk-white feet, looked,
standing in the doorway. Some gentle heart beat there, in the lone
wilderness, I knew by those morning glories. The pretty picture has
often come up before me; and I have wished I were an artist, that I
might show you the lovely lights and shadows of that leafy
backwoods home. When we reached the pretty city of Detroit, it was
so dark we could only dimly see it. We were very tired, too, having
ridden in the cars from early morning till nearly nine in the evening.
So we gazed sleepily out the carriage windows, as we were being
rattled through the streets to the hotel, now and then seeing a
church-spire, now a garden, now a brilliantly lighted row of stores,
now a large square, and passing groups of men, women, and
children, of whom we knew no more than of the man in the moon,
and who had eaten their breakfasts, dinners and suppers, and had
been born, vaccinated, baptized, and married, all the same as if they
did not know we were in existence. It is a strange feeling, this coming
into a strange place, and at night, and wondering what daylight will
have to show to us the next morning, as we sleepily close the
bedroom shutters, and lie down in that strange bed.
The familiar picture, your eyes have opened upon so many
mornings, does not hang on that wall; it is hundreds of miles away.
Joseph and his brethren, or Henry Clay, or the Madonna, or the
Benicia Boy, may be there; but you don’t feel acquainted with them,
and feel a strange delicacy about washing, and combing your hair, in
their company. Breakfast, however, above all things! especially when
you have not dared to eat heartily the night before. So we got ready,
and, having satisfied ourselves, took a carriage to see Detroit. I liked
it very much; the people were wide awake, and not content with
tumble-down old institutions. New handsome buildings were being
put up, besides many that were already finished. The streets were
clean, and prettily set off by little garden-patches, with flowers, trees
and vines about the houses. There was selling and buying too, and a
thorough go-ahead air, in the place, as if this world was not yet
finished by any manner of means, as they seemed to think in
Toronto. Our coachman was very intelligent and civil, so I catechized
him to my heart’s content as to who lived here, and who lived there,
and what this church steeple believed, and who worshiped in the
other; or why General Cass, being such a big man, didn’t live in a
bigger house, and where all the nice peaches came from, about the
streets, and where I could find some nice crackers to nibble, when I
went off in the steamboat that afternoon, and where were the
bookstores, and how much we were to pay for asking so many
questions!
Exchanging our carriage for a steamboat, or “propeller” as they
called it, we bade good by to Detroit, and glided away up to Lake St.
Clair; to the head of Lake Superior. Eleven days we were on the
water, more than long enough to cross the ocean to Old England. I
was very fearful I should not prove a good sailor, particularly as I was
told, before starting, that the lakes sometimes had a touch of old
Ocean’s roughness. My fear was lost in delight as our boat plowed its
way along so gently, day after day, and I sat on deck, the fresh wind
blowing over my face, looking down upon the bright foam-track of
the vessel, or upon the pretty sea-gulls which with untiring wing
followed us hundreds of miles, now and then dipping their snowy
breasts in the blue waves, or riding securely on their foaming tops.
Sometimes little tiny brown birds flew upon the deck of the vessel, as
if glad to see human faces, in their trackless homes. Winter begins
very early up on these lakes; so while it was still sweltering weather
in New York, we were not surprised to see the gay autumn leaves
hung out, like signal flags, here and there on the shore, warning us
not to stay too long, where the cold winds lashed the waves so
furiously, or without a word of warning locked them up in icy fetters
without asking leave of any steamboat. It was hard to believe it, even
in sight of the pretty autumn leaves, so soft was the wind, so blue was
the sea and sky, so gently were we rocked and cradled. Now and then
an Indian, a real live Indian, in a real Indian canoe, would pass us
with a blanket for a sail, shouting us a rough welcome in his own
way, as he passed. Now and then a little speck, just on the edge of the
water where it seemed to meet the sky, would gradually grow larger
and larger till it turned out to be another boat, and with a burst of
music, from the band on board, they too would pass away, and leave
us silent as before. Now, where the lake grew narrow, we saw little
huts, dotted in and out along the line of shore. There life and death
with its solemn mysteries went on, just as it does in your home or
mine. Now and then we stopped at what the captain called “a
landing,” for wood or coal or freight for the boat. Then the people
who lived there flocked down to see us, and to buy melons of us,
which were a great treat, where nothing but pines and potatoes
would grow. Then we would leap over the gangway to the wharf, and
scamper up into the town, to take the exercise we needed after being
lazy so long, and then “all hands on board!” and away we glided
again; the strange friendly faces on the pier smiling as we passed
away.
Oh, it was lovely! I never wanted to leave the boat; I wanted you,
and every body else, who enjoy such things, to come there and float
on those blue waters, with me forever.
Oh, had you only been there beside me on one of many heavenly
evenings, you would never, never have forgotten it! The red sun sank
slowly into the blue waves, on one side of us, while the moon rose
majestically out of the water, on the other; and before us the
beautiful island of “The Great Spirit” was set like an emerald in the
sapphire sea. Then, when all this glory passed away into the
darkness, and I sat marveling if Heaven with “its golden streets and
gates of pearl,” could be fairer, up flashed “the Aurora” in long
quivering lines of light, rose-color and silver, till earth and sea and
sky were all ablaze with glory!
My heart beat quick, I held my breath, as though some great being
were sweeping past, whose glorious silken robe I would, but dare not,
bow my lips to press.
Now I must tell you, that I went into an Indian wigwam, where the
door was a blanket; where the bedstead was made of twigs and
branches; where a big brown woman was stirring something, witch-
fashion, in a boiling pot over the fire; where copper-colored children,
with diamond eyes, and long, black, snaky locks, were squatted in the
sun, outside the wigwam, while the square-cheeked men caught fish
in the little canoes, from the sparkling “rapids,” that seemed just
going to wash away their bird’s-nest looking huts. As to the
“romantic Indian maid” we read about, I am sorry to tell you that she
wears a hoop! for I saw it with my own eyes. However, she seemed so
proud and well pleased with her first attempts at the genteel, that I
wouldn’t smile, as I felt like doing.
I didn’t ask her how she managed to get in and out of their little
egg-shell boats with that hoop, or through the small aperture that
served for a door to the wigwam. Perhaps she dropped it off on the
outside when she wanted to go into her queer house—who knows? I
might say I should have liked her better without it, on that bright
morning, as she stood there by the blue Sault River, with her glossy
black hair blowing about her bright eyes. Eleven days in all we were
on these beautiful lakes; more than long enough to go to Europe,
which I hope some day to see. One night too long we were on the
water before we reached Chicago. And what a night that was, of fog
and rain and thunder and lightning. So vivid was the lightning that
no one would have been surprised at any moment had it struck the
vessel. Every peal of thunder seemed as if it thumped us directly on
the head. The steamer tipped and rolled, and the rain beat into the
cabin windows and dripped on the bed, and deluged the floor. The
military company whom we took on board a few hours before,
hushed their songs and jests, and watched with us for the daylight
that was to ensure the safety of all on board. It came at last; and we
breathed freely as we stepped safely on shore. How little we thought,
as we shook hands with the merry captain, and I promised “to take
another trip on his nice boat next summer,” that the very next night
he would be shipwrecked on those waters!
Ah! the poor captain! My eyes fill, my heart aches, as if I had
known him years, instead of those few bright fairy days. Poor
Captain Jack Wilson, with his handsome, sunshiny face, cheery
voice, and manly ways! How little I thought there would be no “next
summer” for him, when he so kindly helped me up on the “hurricane
deck,” and into the cosy little “pilothouse” to look about; who was
always sending me word to come “forward” or “aft,” because he knew
I so much enjoyed seeing all beautiful things; who was all goodness,
all kindness, and yet, after we left him that morning, found a grave in
that cruel surf!
The afternoon of the day we said our last good by to him on the
Chicago pier, we had taken a carriage to drive round the city, and
reined up at the draw, for a boat to pass through. It was the “Lady
Elgin” going forth to meet her doom! We kissed our hands gaily to
her, in the bright sunshine, and that night as we slept safely in our
beds at the hotel, that brave heart, with a little wailing babe pressed
to it, had only a treacherous raft between him and eternity. The poor,
poor captain! It was so hard to give him up! As his strong arm
sustained the helpless in that fearful night, may God support his own
gentle ones in this their direst need.
This was indeed a gloomy ending to our lovely lake trip. We saw
many things to interest us on our return to New York through
Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but, as you may suppose, we were not very
gay; every now and then, when we saw anything beautiful, we would
say to each other, “The poor captain!” You know there are some
people whom it is so hard to “make dead;” and he was one of these.
So strong, so sunshiny, so full of life! How blessed to know all this
bright intelligence cannot be extinguished like a taper; else, how sad,
my dear children, would life be to us.
 WHEN I WAS YOUNG.

N ot one girl in ten, now-a-days, knows how to sew. “’Twas not so

in my time,” as the old ladies say, with an ominous shake of the
head. No; in my school-days proper attention was given to rivers,
bays, capes, islands, and cities in the forenoon—interspersed with, “I
love, thou lovest, he, she, or it loves;” then, at the child’s hungry hour
—(twelve)—we were dismissed to roast beef and apple dumplings. At
three we marched back with a comfortable dinner under our aprons
—with cool heads, rosy cheeks, and a thimble in our pockets; and
never a book did we see all the blessed afternoon. I see her—the
schoolma’am (angels see her now), with her benevolent face, and
ample bosom—your flat-chested woman never should keep school,
she has no room for the milk of human kindness; I see her sitting on
that old cane-bottomed chair, going through the useless ceremony of
counting noses, to see if there were any truants; and of course there
never were from choice, for our teacher never forgot that she was
once a child herself. I see her calling one after another to take from
her hand a collar, or wristbands, or shirt-bosom to stitch, or some
button-holes to make;—good old soul! and then, when we were all
seated, she drew from her pocket some interesting book and read it
aloud to us—not disdaining to laugh at the funny places, and
allowing us to do the same—hearing, well pleased, all our childish
remarks, and answering patiently all our questions concerning the
story, or travels, or poetry she was reading, while our willing fingers
grew still more nimble; and every child uttered an involuntary “Oh!”
when the sun slanted into the west window, telling us that afternoon
school was over.
Ah, those were the days!
I bless that schoolmistress every time I darn a stocking or make or
mend a garment; and I am glad for her own sake that she is not alive
now, to see the ologies and isms that are thumped into children’s
heads, to the exclusion of things better suited to their age, and which
all the French and Italian that ever was mispronounced by fashion,
can never take the place of in practical life. Yes—girls then knew how
to sew. Where will you find a schoolgirl who does it neatly, now? who
does not hate a needle, and most clumsily wields it when compelled
to? and not by her own fault, poor thing! though her future husband
may not be as ready as I to shield her with this excuse. Modern
mothers never seem to think of this. Male teachers, with buttonless
shirts on their own backs, seem to ignore it. No place for the needle
in school, and no time, on account of long lessons, out. Where is a
modern girl to learn this all-important branch of education, I want to
know? A fig for your worsted work, your distorted cats, and rabbits,
and cows! Give me the girl who can put a shirt together, or the
feminine of a shirt either—which, by the way, I could never see the
impropriety of mentioning, any more than its male, though I am not
going to make any old maid scream by saying “chemise”—of course
not!
I am concerned for the rising generation; spinally in the first place,
stitch-ically in the second. All the stitches they know of now are in
their sides, poor things! I should like every schoolhouse to have a
playground, where the pupils could stay when they were not in
school—which should be almost never, until ventilation, recesses,
and school hours are better regulated—in fact, till the whole system
is tipped over, and buried fathoms under ground, and only spoken of
as the tortures of the Inquisition are spoken of—with shuddering
horror—as remnants of darkness and barbarism. I don’t want
children to be burned up, but I don’t care how many badly conducted
schoolhouses burn down. I consider every instance a special
interposition of Providence; and even if some of the children are
burned—horrible as that is—is it not a quicker mode of death than
that they are daily put through, poor, tortured things?
 A NURSERY THOUGHT.

D o you ever think how much work a little child does in a day?
How from sunrise to sunset, the little feet patter round—to us—
so aimlessly. Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to
another place, but never still. Twisting and turning, and rolling and
reaching, and doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their
future uses. It is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well
understand the deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as with one
arm tossed over its curly head, it prepares for the next day’s
gymnastics. Tireless through the day, till that time comes, as the
maternal love which so patiently accommodates itself hour after
hour to its thousand wants and caprices, real or fancied.
A busy creature is a little child. To be looked upon with awe as well
as delight, as its clear eye looks trustingly into faces that to God and
man have essayed to wear a mask. As it sits down in its little chair to
ponder precociously over the white lie you thought it “funny” to tell
it. As, rising and leaning on your knee, it says, thoughtfully, in a tone
which should provoke a tear, not a smile—“I don’t believe it.” A
lovely and yet a fearful thing is that little child.
 THE USE OF GRANDMOTHERS.

A little boy, who had spilled a pitcher of milk, stood crying, in view
of a whipping, over the wreck. A little playmate stepped up to
him and said, condolingly:—Why, Bobby, haven’t you got a
grandmother?
Who of us cannot remember this family mediator, always ready
with an excuse for broken china, or torn clothes, or tardy lessons, or
little white fibs? Who was it had always on hand the convenient
stomach-ache, or headache, or toothache, to work on parental
tenderness? Whose consoling stick of candy, or paper of sugar
plums, or seed-cake, never gave out; and who always kept strings to
play horse with, and could improvise riding whips and tiny kites, and
dress rag-babies, and tell stories between daylight and dark to an
indefinable amount to ward off the dreaded go-to-bed hour?
Who staid at home, none so happy, with the children while papa
and mamma “went pleasuring?” Who straightened out the little
waxen limbs for the coffin when papa and mamma were blind with
tears? Who gathered up the little useless robes and shoes and toys,
and hid them away from torturing sight till heaven’s own balm was
poured into those aching hearts? “Haven’t you got a grandmother?”
Alas! if only our grown up follies and faults might always find as
merciful judgment, how many whom harshness and severity have
driven to despair and crime, were now to be found useful and happy
members of society!
 THE INVENTOR OF THE LOCOMOTIVE.

D id you ever ride in an old-fashioned stage coach? cramped in

your back, cramped in your legs, with a “crick” in your neck,
while you were packed in, and strapped in so closely that it was next
to impossible to move a toe or a finger? Was the day hot and dusty,
and had the tired horses hill after hill to crawl and climb up? Was
some fellow-passenger’s knee boring a hole in your back, and did you
bump, and thump, and bob about, hour after hour, unable to sleep,
and too weary almost to live, till, when you drew up at last to some
little country tavern, before which Lafayette or Washington hung
creaking on a sign, with John Smith’s Hotel underneath, you didn’t
care whether you ever got out or not; whether you ever ate, or drank,
or laughed again; whether your trunk was safe, or lost on the road,
miles back? Well, if you have not experienced all this, perhaps your
father or mother, or uncle, or aunt have; and they will tell you that is
one of the slow methods in which people used to travel before
railroads and cars were invented. Ah, but, you say, stages were safer
than railroad cars! Were they? They never tipped over, I suppose, or
rolled over a precipice of a dark night, or had defective wheels, or
drunken drivers, or balky horses, or any thing of that sort. And if
anybody was very sick, or dying, at a distance, they might not have
been buried weeks, I suppose, before one could reach them.
Well, people after a while thought they might travel faster than
this, and quite as safely, too.
George Stephenson, the great Railway Engineer, was one of the
first who thought this, and worked hard, and long, to make it
possible. I want to tell you about him, because it seems to me quite
beautiful that a poor, uneducated boy, as he was, should have
brought so great a thing to pass. I rejoice in it, because I love to think
that in our country our most useful and best men have, many of
them, been very poor and humble when young; and because I want
every boy who reads this to feel encouraged to try what he too can do,
instead of folding his hands and saying, “oh, what’s the use? I was
born poor, and I shall die poor; I’m ignorant, and I shall die ignorant.
Who cares what becomes of me?” I tell you I care for one, and if
nobody cared, you ought to care yourself. It is very certain, if you
don’t care yourself, that nobody can do much for you. Well, George
Stephenson was the son of a poor collier, in England. He was the
second of six children, for whom their father and mother worked
hard to find bread and butter. Little George lived like other working
people’s children: played about the doors, went bird’s nesting now
and then, or of errands to the village; and as he grew bigger, carried
his father’s dinner to him when at work; or helped nurse his brothers
and sisters at home; for in a poor man’s house, you know, every little
hand and foot must do something in the way of helping. As to school,
none of them thought of such a thing; it was as much as they could
do to keep a roof over their heads, and something to eat and drink.
Dewley Burn was the name of the place where the one-roomed
cottage stood, in which George was born; and near which his father
was employed, to tend the engine-fire near the coalpit. Robert
Stephenson, George’s father, was a kind-hearted, pleasant man. You
may know that, because all the young people of an evening used to go
and sit round his engine-fire while he told stories to them;
sometimes about Sinbad the Sailor; sometimes about Robinson
Crusoe, and often something which he himself “made up” to please
them. Of course “Bob’s engine-fire” was a great place. No stoop of a
village tavern on “muster day” was ever more glorious to happy
urchins. You can almost see the picture; the bright fire blazing, and
rows of bright eyes glistening in its light, some black, some blue,
some gray; curly locks and straight locks, slender lads, and fat lads;
some with chins on their palms, and elbows on their knees, some flat
on their backs or sides, on the ground; and all believing every word
of Bob’s, as you now do storybooks, which they would have given
their ears to get hold of, though I have my doubts, if they are better,
after all, than were “Bob’s stories.” Now you are not to think because
George’s father worked as a collier, that he had no love for beautiful
things. On the contrary, he used to take nice long, breezy summer
walks, whenever he got a chance, with his little son. And when
George had grown up to be a man, and long after his good father’s
white head was under the sod, George used to speak often of his
lifting him up to look into a black-bird’s nest, and of the delight and
wonder with which he gazed at the little peeping creatures for the
first time. I dare say your father and mother can tell you some such
little thing which they remember about their childhood’s home,
which stands out in their memory now, from the mist of years, like a
lovely picture, sunny and glowing and untouched by time.
These are blessed memories to keep the heart green. They are like
the little swaying wild flower that the dusty traveler sometimes finds
in a rock crevice, breathing out its sweetness all the same as if it were
not hemmed in by flinty walls and bars; more beautiful than the
most gorgeous garden flowers, which every passer by has gazed at,
and handled, because to God and ourselves it is sacred. These
childish memories! they are the first round of the ladder by which
our world-weary feet shall climb to heaven, after those who have
rocked our cradles.
Near Dewley Burn lived a widow, named Grace Ainslie, who kept a
number of cows that used to nibble the grass along the woods. A boy
was needed to watch them, and keep them from being run over by
the coal wagons, or straying into the neighboring fields. To this boy’s
duty was added that of barring the gates at night, after the coal
wagons had passed through. George applied for this place, and to his
great joy he got it, at two pence a day. It was easy work to loll about
on the fresh green grass, and watch the lazy cows as they nibbled, or
stretched themselves under the trees, chewing and winking, hour
after hour. George had plenty of time to look for birds’ nests and
make whistles out of sticks and straws, and build little mills in the
water streams. But if you watched the boy, you would see that, best
of all, when he and his friend Tom got together, he liked to build clay
engines. The clay they found in the bogs, and of the hemlock which
grew about, they made their steam pipes. I dare say some solemn
wise head might have passed that way, and sighed that these boys
were “wasting their time” playing in the mud; not remembering that
children in their “foolish play,” by their little failures and successes in
experimenting, sometimes educate themselves better than any book-
read man in the land could do it; at least, at that age. Then it was a
blessed thing that the child’s work lay out of doors, and not in a
stifling close factory, or shop. That his limbs got strong and his cheek
brown and sunburnt, and his eye bright as a young eagle’s. Every day
now added to his growth, and of course to his employment; though
scarcely big enough to stride, he led the horses when plowing, and
when he was able to hoe turnips and do such farm work, he was very
much delighted at his increased wages of fourpence a day. When he
was thirteen, he made a sun-dial for his father’s cottage. You may be
sure his father was very proud of that. His little head had been busy,
you see, when he lay on the grass watching the cows. By and by
George got eighteen pence a day, and at last the wish of his heart, in
being taken as an assistant to his father in feeding the engine fire.
George was very much afraid, he was such a little fellow, that he
should be thought too young for the work, and when the overseer of
the colliery went the rounds, to see if everything was done right,
George used to hide himself, for fear he would think him too small a
boy to earn his wages. Some lads as fond as he was of bird’s-nesting,
and such amusements, would not have been in such a hurry to make
themselves useful; but George’s parents worked hard, and he loved
them; he knew that white hairs were creeping among those brown
locks of his mother’s, and that his good, merry father would not
always be able to tend the engine fire; and so though his tame black-
bird, who made the cottage her home in winter, flying in and out,
and roosting on the head of his bed, and disappearing in the spring
and summer, in the woods, to pair and to rear its young, and then
coming back again in winter to live with George; although his bird
was a very pretty pet, and his tame rabbits were a great pleasure, too,
yet little as he was, he was anxious to shoulder his share of the
burden that was pressing so heavily on his parents. Ever since, too,
that he had modeled that little clay engine in the bog, he had
determined to be an engineer, and the first step to this was to be an
assistant fireman. Imagine, then, his delight when, at fourteen years,
he got the post at the wages of a shilling a day.
George’s home was one small room, crowded with three low-
posted beds, in which father and mother, four sons, and two
daughters slept. This one room was, of course, parlor, kitchen and
sleeping-room, all in one. This cottage was furnished by the Duke
who employed these people; he being also their landlord. Now I
would be willing if I ever made bets, to bet you something handsome,
that this Duke had a liveried servant behind his chair at home, and a
table loaded with dainties, and silver and cut glass, and more wines
in his castle than he knew how to use; and horses and hounds, and
carriages and pictures, and statues, and conservatories and hot
houses, and all that; and yet, that he was not one half as happy as the
Stephensons in that little cottage with one room. Aching heads are
apt to go with dainty food, and weak limbs with soft beds. When a
poor man has a friend, he generally knows that he is loved for
himself; when a rich man has one, he is never sure how much his
riches have to do with his friendship. Many a rich man has sighed for
the days when he used to run barefoot; and many a jeweled lady for
the day when the little brook was her looking-glass. Things are more
equal in this life, after all, than grumblers are apt to imagine. Well, to
go back to George, all the time he was feeding that fire, he had his
eyes open, watching everything about the engine; nothing escaped
his notice; I have no doubt his father watched him, with an honest
pride shining out of his eyes. It must have been very pleasant for the
two to work together, and help each other; for George was growing
strong and big, and used to try to make himself stronger by lifting
heavy weights. When he was seventeen, he was made a “flagman.”
That was a station as watchman above his father, as the flagman
holds a higher rank than the fireman, and receives higher wages. No
doubt good old Robert was as delighted as George could be at this
promotion. We can imagine, too, how his mother and sisters, as they
worked industriously to keep the little one room cottage tidy and
comfortable, sang cheerfully as they worked, when they thought of
their good strong brother. It is a flagman’s duty, when the engine is
out of order, to call on the chief engineer to set it right. George had
rarely need to do this. The engine was a perfect pet with him. He
understood every part of it; he took it to pieces and cleaned it
himself, and learned so well how it worked, and what it needed, that
nobody could instruct him anything about it. It is said that all the
important improvements of steam-engines have been made, not by
learned literary men, but by plain laborers.
Everything that George undertook, howsoever small the matter
might be, he determined to understand perfectly, and to do well and
thoroughly. When George said that he knew he could do a thing, all
his friends knew it was no idle boast. So you will not be astonished
when I tell you that he went on studying and improving till he
became a famous man; so famous that he received calls from abroad,
asking his advice as “a constructing engineer” about building bridges
and railways, and all such things. I guess he never thought of that,
when he was building bridges of mud with his play-fellows. Little
children, you see, are not always “wasting their time” when they are
playing quietly by themselves. No, indeed. I guess he didn’t think
then that he should build a two-mile bridge across the St. Lawrence
in connection with the Grand Trunk Canadian Railway, which should
be so much admired and praised for its taste as well as skill; or, when
he slept in the little cottage with only one room in it, that he should
one day become “a Member of Parliament;” or that when he died, he
should be buried in state at Westminster Abbey, where all the
famous, great men were buried, and that immense crowds of people
should go to his funeral, and be so sorry that a man who was so
useful to his country should die, when he was only fifty-six years old.
But so it was. I think George made good use of those fifty-six years;
don’t you?
 TO MY LITTLE FRIENDS.

I want to say a few words to the little children who write me such
nice letters.
Some of you live in and about New York, some at a great distance
from it. I should be very glad, had I time, to write each of you a long
letter—indeed, many long letters; but how is this possible, if I “make
some more books for you,” as you all request me to do? One cannot
write a book as fast as one can read it through; perhaps you do not
think of that. Besides, I write every week for the New York Ledger.
Then I have a great many other calls upon my time, of which you
know nothing. Like your own mamma, I have children. They
sometimes say, “Oh, do throw away that tiresome pen, and talk to
us.” And then I say, “Yes, presently.” But still I have to keep on
writing. Then, you know, if I only used my head, and never my feet,
my head would not last long. I must exercise a great deal every day,
else I should fly up the chimney, or through the roof, like a witch. But
for all that I don’t forget one little girl or boy who ever wrote to me;
and although I cannot answer, it always pleases me to hear from you.
I want you all to believe this, and write me whenever you feel like it.
 BABY EFFIE.

D o you see this little baby? Her name is Effie, and her young
mother is dead. Well, partly on that account, and partly because
she is just the loveliest, and brightest, and sweetest baby that ever
was born, she rules every one in the house. How? why, by one smile
or cunning little trick, she can make them all go and come, fetch and
carry, rise and sit down, all the same as if they had no will but hers.
For instance, you may say, now at such a time I will go to such a
place; but if that baby catches sight of you going out, and makes up a
little grieved mouth because you are going, unless you could coax her
to forget it, with a piece of the moon, or some such wonderful thing,
you would very likely stay at home with her. If you say your side
aches, and really, Effie grows so fat on her good sweet milk, that you
must let nurse carry her more, even if she does whimper a little; and
you may really mean to do it; but oh, why has she such a dear little
red mouth, and such a distracting way of fixing her lips, and such a
pleading look in her soft eyes, and such a musical little coax to make
believe talk, unless it be that her dimpled feet shall always be on your
obedient neck? You can’t look at her as if she were only a rag baby.
And very likely you’d get thinking, too, that nobody could tie her
bonnet, or cloak, save yourself, or button her little red boots right; so
that no fold of her mite of a stocking should double under her
ridiculous little toes.
Perhaps you think it is a very simple thing to wash and dress little
Effie. That shows how little you know. Now listen. That baby has four
distinct little chins that you must watch your chance to wash between
her frantic little crying-spells; then she has as many little rolls of fat
on the back of the neck, that have to be searched out, and bathed;
and all the time you are doing this you have to be talking little baby
talk to her, to make her believe you are only playing, instead of
washing her. Then baby won’t have her ears or nose meddled with;
and if you interfere with her toes, she won’t put up with it a minute;
and it takes two people to open her chubby little fists when it is time
to wash them. Then you haven’t the least idea of the job it is to get
one of her stiff little vexed arms out of her cambric sleeve; or how
many times she kicks while you are tying on her tiny red shoe. Then
she is just as mad as can be when you lay her over on her stomach to
tie the strings of her frock; and she is still more mad if you lay her on
her back. And besides, she can stiffen herself out, when she likes, so
that “all the king’s men” couldn’t make her sit down, and at another
time she will curl herself up in a circle, so that neither they nor
anybody else could straighten her out; then you had better just count
the garments that have to be got off and on before this washing and
dressing business is done; and then every now and then you have to
stop to see that she is not choking or strangling; or that you have not
put any of her funny little legs or arms out of joint, or hurt her
bobbing little head. Now, I hope you understand what a delicate job
it is. But when the last string is tied, and little Effie comes out of this
daily misery into scarlet-lipped, diamond-eyed peace, looking fresh
and sweet as a rosebud, and dropping off to sleep in your arms, with
quivering white eyelids and pretty murmurings of the little half-
smiling lips, while the perfect little fat waxen hands lie idly by her
side, ah—then you should see her!
You would understand then, how hard it is to keep from spoiling
her; not by loving her too much; that never hurt anybody; but by
giving her everything she wants, whether it is best for her or not, just
because it is so heart-breaking to see the tears on her cheeks. That
would never do, you know, not even for little motherless Effie; for
how is she ever to become good, if she can get everything she wants
by crying for it? She can’t understand that now, but by and by she
will; and then those who have care of her must learn to say no, no
matter how pretty and coaxing she is, if she should want a hammer
and a watch to play with; yes, even though she should cry about it.
Nobody can tell whether Effie is loveliest sleeping or waking. Poor
little dear; when she is asleep she often makes the motion of nursing
with her lips, just as if her mother were living, instead of dead, and
she were lying on her warm breast. And then, too, she often smiles
till little dimples come in her cheeks, and her lips part, and show her
four little white teeth, which have troubled her so much in coming,
and which look so like little pearls. And sometimes in her sleep she
kicks her little fat leg, with its pretty white foot, and pink toes, out on
the coverlet, just as if she were fixing herself for a pretty picture that
some artist might paint her. And when she wakes, she puts her little
cheek up against yours to be loved and kissed, and—but dear me, you
will think I am quite a fool, if I go on this way; and I shouldn’t
wonder; for it really is true that I am never tired of telling dear little
Effie’s perfections all the same as if she were the only lovely baby
that was ever born; although every house holds half a dozen, more or
less; still perhaps you might as well not say to me that any of them
can begin to compare with little Effie.
But really, after all, I can’t stop till I tell you how much that child
knows. I am not certain that it would do to tell state secrets before
her; for though she can’t talk, and though she sits on the floor,
playing with her toys, I sometimes feel, when she drops them, and
looks up with her sweet, earnest little face, as if she had lived another
life somewhere, and her grown-up-soul had come back and crept into
that little baby’s body. Sometimes, when I look at her, I wish, oh! so
much, that I could always keep all sorrow, and all suffering from her,
and make her whole life happy; but this cannot be. Besides, I know,
that He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will surely care for
little motherless Effie.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and
variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings
as printed.
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