Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes, when I am asked to do so Did you ever hear that Celia Thaxter, finding herself in a car oear emulated a bird-museum, was moved to rise and appeal to them in so kindly a way that some pulled off the feathers then and there, and all promised to reforry when spring after spring they picked her seeds out of her 'Island Garden'”
”Have you any special netic power over birds, so that they will coer?”
”Not in the least I just like theet acquainted with them Each bird whose acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to me as if he were totally unknown to the world”
We were sitting by a southernthat looks out on a wide-spreading and ancient ellory and pride Not one bird had I seen on it that cold, repellent middle of March But Mrs Miller looked up, and said: ”Your robins have coh I could now see a pair
”And there are the woodpeckers, but they have stayed all winter No doubt you have the hooting owls There's an oriole's nest, badly winter-worn; but they will coain I see you feed your chickadees and sparrows, because they are so tame and fearless
I'd like to come later and make a list of the birds on your place”
I wonder howat Deerfield, Massachusetts, I said one day to my host, the artist JW Champney: ”You don't seem to haverising inflection ”Mrs Miller, ith us last week, found thirty-nine varieties in our front yard before breakfast!” Untrained eyes are really blind
Mrs Miller is an excellent housekeeper, although a daughter now relieves her of that care But, speaking at table of this and that dish and vegetable, she proe marmalade, baked canned corn, scalloped salmon, onion _a la creme_ (delicious), and did carefully copy and send them
She told one If she is poor, a retreat is ready for her without pay; if rich, she would better seek one of the hoed fe of interest was the fact that when Mrs Miller eats no breakfast, her brain is in far better condition to write She is a Swedenborgian, and I think that persons of that faith have usually a cheerful outlook on life She was obliged to support herself after forty years of age
I would add to her advice about a hobby: don't wait till ht away, now Boys always do I know of one young lady who oodly sum out of home-made marmalade; another who makes dresses for her family and special friends; another who sells three hundred dozen ”brown” eggs to one of the best groceries in Boston, and supports herself By the hat can you do?
Mrs Lippincott had such a splendid, netic presence, such a handsome face with dark poetic eyes, and acco her as I did, I think I should be untrue to her if I did not try to show her as she was in her brilliant prime, and not merely as a punster or a _raconteur_, or as she appeared in her dramatic recitals, for these were but a senius
Whento her husband: ”Grace writes me that she will be here tomorrow, to spend the Sabbath,” and then said to me, ”Grace Greenwood, I mean; have you ever met her?” my heart beat very quickly in pleasant anticipation of her co Grace Greenwood! Why, I had known her and loved her, at least her writings, ever since I was ten years old
Those dear books, bound in red, with such pretty pictures--_History of My Pets_ and _Recollections of My Childhood_, were the most precious volumes in my little library Anyone who has had pets and lost them (and the one follows the other, for pets always coht in these stories
And then the _Little Pilgrim_, which I used to like next best to the _Youth's Coraceful poetry; her racy azine stories; her _Haps and Mishaps of a Tour in Europe_; her sparkling letters to the _Tribune_, full of reliable news froraphic descriptions of prominent lad I should be to look in her face and to shake hands with the author who had given me so , just when she was expected, with a vigorous pull, and, as the door opened, heard her say, in a jolly, soothing way: ”Don't get into a passion,” to thetrunk And then I ran away, not wishi+ng to intrude, and waited impatiently for dinner and an introduction to my well-beloved heroine
Grace--Mrs Lippincott--I found to be a tall, fine-looking lady, with a coure and a face that did not disappoint me, as faces so often do which you have dreamed about She had dark hair, brown rather than black, which was arranged in beconetic, full of sys and of quick appreciation of fun She talked ood stories she told us, that happy Saturday night, as we lingered round the table, you would be convulsed with laughter, that is, if I could give theestures, expressions, and vivid word-pictures
She told one story which well illustrated the alhbours about so An unfortunate husband was bothered eachby repeated calls from children, ere sent by busythis ” At last this became offensive, and he said: ”Well, she's just the same--she ain't no better and she ain't no worse--she keeps just about so--she's just about dead, you can say she's dead”
One Sunday evening she described her talks with the men in the prisons and penitentiaries, to who that these hardened sinners had s for a nobler life, in spite of all their sins
No, I was not disappointed in ”GG” She was just as natural, hearty, and off-hand as when soht-eyed schoolgirl, Sara Clarke, of western New York, as alypsy in her love for the fields and forests
She was always ready for any out-door exercise or sport This gave her glorious health, which up to that time she had not lost
Her _nom de plume_, which she says she has never been able to drop, was only one of the many alliterative naazines and Annuals of those years, and you will find many such, as ”Mary Maywood,” ”Dora Dashwood,” ”Ella Ellwood” ”fanny Forrester,” ”fanny Fern,” ”Jennie June,” ”Minnie Myrtle,” and so on through the alphabet, one al one of Mrs Lippincott's first scrapbooks of ”Extracts from Newspapers,” etc, which she had labelled, ”Vanity, all is Vanity,” I find s, and ht really be The public curiosity was piqued to find out this new author who added to forceful originality ”the fascination of splendid gayety and brilliant trifling” John Brougham, the actor and dramatist, thus expressed his interest in a published letter to Willis:
The only person that I am disposed to think, write or talk about at present is your dazzling, bewitching correspondent, ”Grace Greenwood” Who is she? that Imyself at her feet! There is a splendour and dash about her pen that carry e I shall advertise for her throughout the whole Western country in the terms in which they inquire for Alht of a wo in her nature but air and fire?”