AMELIA E. BARR.
THE POPULAR NOVELIST.
ERHAPS no other writer in the United States commands so wide a circle of readers, both at home and abroad, as does Mrs. Barr. She is, however, personally, very little known, as her disposition is somewhat shy and retiring, and most of her time is spent at her home on the Storm King Mountain at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York.
Mrs. Barr’s life has been an eventful one, broken in upon by sorrow, bereavement and hardship, and she has risen superior to her trials and made her way through difficulties in a manner which is possible only to an individual of the strongest character.
Amelia E. Huddleston was born at Ulverstone, in the northwest of England, in 1832. She early became a thorough student, her studies being directed by her father, who was an eloquent and learned preacher. When she was seventeen, she went to a celebrated school in Scotland; but her education was principally derived from the reading of books to her father.
When about eighteen she was married to Robert Barr, and soon after came to America, traveling in the West and South. They were in New Orleans in 1856 and were driven out by the yellow fever, and settled in Austin, Texas, where Mr. Barr received an appointment in the comptroller’s office. Removing to Galveston after the Civil War, Mr. Barr and his four sons died in 1876 of yellow fever. As soon as she could safely do so, Mrs. Barr took her three daughters to New York, where she obtained an appointment to assist in the education of the three sons of a prominent merchant. When she had prepared these boys for college, she looked about for other means of livelihood, and, by the assistance of Henry Ward Beecher and Doctor Lyman Abbott, she was enabled to get some contributions accepted by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, for whose periodicals she wrote for a number of years. An accident which happened to her in 1884 changed her life and conferred upon the world a very great benefit. She was confined to her chair for a considerable time, and, being compelled to abandon her usual methods of work, she wrote her first novel, “Jan Vedder’s Wife.” It was instantly successful, running through many editions, and has been translated into one or two European languages. Since that time she has published numerous stories. One of the most successful was “Friend Olivia,” a study of Quaker character which recalls the closing years of the Commonwealth in England, and which her girlhood’s home at Ulverstone, the scene of the rise of Quakerism, gave her special advantages in preparing. It is an unusually powerful story; and the pictures of Cromwell and George Fox are not only refreshingly new and bright but remarkably just and appreciative. Some of her other stories are “Feet of Clay,” the scene of which is laid on the Isle of Man; “The Bow of Orange Ribbon,” a study of Dutch life in New York; “Remember the Alamo,” recalling the revolt of Texas; “She Loved a Sailor,” which deals with sea life and which draws its scenes from the days of slavery; “The Last of the MacAllisters;” “A Sister of Esau;” and “A Rose of a Hundred Leaves.” Only a slight study of Mrs. Barr’s books is necessary to show the wide range of her sympathies, her quick and vivid imagination, and her wonderful literary power; and her career has been an admirable illustration of the power of some women to win success even under the stress of sorrow, disaster and bereavement.
LITTLE JAN’S TRIUMPH.[¹]
(FROM [♦]“JAN VEDDER’s WIFE.”)
[¹] Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.
[♦] ‘JANE’ replaced with ‘JAN’
S she approached her house, she saw a crowd of boys, and little Jan walking proudly in front of them. One was playing “Miss Flora McDonald’s Reel” on a violin, and the gay strains were accompanied by finger-snapping, whistling, and occasional shouts. “There is no quiet to be found anywhere, this morning,” thought Margaret, but her curiosity was aroused, and she went towards the children. They saw her coming, and with an accession of clamor hastened to meet her. Little Jan carried a faded, battered wreath of unrecognizable materials, and he walked as proudly as Pompey may have walked in a Roman triumph. When Margaret saw it, she knew well what had happened, and she opened her arms, and held the boy to her heart, and kissed him over and over, and cried out, “Oh, my brave little Jan, brave little Jan! How did it happen then? Thou tell me quick.”
“Hal Ragner shall tell thee, my mother;” and Hal eagerly stepped forward:
“It was last night, Mistress Vedder, we were all watching for the ‘Arctic Bounty;’ but she did not come, and this morning as we were playing, the word was passed that she had reached Peter Fae’s pier. Then we all ran, but thou knowest that thy Jan runs like a red deer, and so he got far ahead, and leaped on board, and was climbing the mast first of all. Then Bor Skade, he tried to climb over him, and Nichol Sinclair, he tried to hold him back, but the sailors shouted, ‘Bravo, little Jan Vedder!’ and the skipper shouted ‘Bravo!’ and thy father, he shouted higher than all the rest. And when Jan had cut loose the prize, he was like to greet for joy, and he clapped his hands, and kissed Jan, and he gave him five gold sovereigns,—see, then, if he did not!” And little Jan proudly put his hand in his pocket, and held them out in his small soiled palm.
The feat which little Jan had accomplished is one which means all to the Shetland boy that his first buffalo means to the Indian youth. When a whaler is in Arctic seas, the sailors on the first of May make a garland of such bits of ribbons, love tokens, and keepsakes, as have each a private history, and this they tie to the top of the mainmast. There it swings, blow high or low, in sleet and hail, until the ship reaches her home-port. Then it is the supreme emulation of every lad, and especially of every sailor’s son, to be first on board and first up the mast to cut it down, and the boy who does it is the hero of the day, and has won his footing on every Shetland boat.
What wonder, then, that Margaret was proud and happy? What wonder that in her glow of delight the thing she had been seeking was made clear to her? How could she go better to Suneva than with this crowd of happy boys? If the minister thought she ought to share one of her blessings with Suneva, she would double her obedience, and ask her to share the mother’s as well as the wife’s joy.
“One thing I wish, boys,” she said happily, “let us go straight to Peter Fae’s house, for Hal Ragner must tell Suneva Fae the good news also.” So, with a shout, the little company turned, and very soon Suneva, who was busy salting some fish in the cellar of her house, heard her name called by more than fifty shrill voices, in fifty different keys.
She hurried upstairs, saying to herself, “It will be good news, or great news, that has come to pass, no doubt; for when ill-luck has the day, he does not call any one like that; he comes sneaking in.” Her rosy face was full of smiles when she opened the door, but when she saw Margaret and Jan standing first of all, she was for a moment too amazed to speak.
Margaret pointed to the wreath: “Our Jan took it from the topmast of the ‘Arctic Bounty,’” she said. “The boys brought him home to me, and I have brought him to thee, Suneva. I thought thou would like it.”
“Our Jan!” In those two words Margaret cancelled everything remembered against her. Suneva’s eyes filled, and she stretched out both her hands to her step-daughter.
“Come in, Margaret! Come in, my brave, darling Jan! Come in, boys, everyone of you! There is cake, and wheat bread, and preserved fruit enough for you all; and I shall find a shilling for every boy here, who has kept Jan’s triumph with him.”
THE OLD PIANO.
OW still and dusky is the long-closed room!
What lingering shadows and what faint perfume
Of Eastern treasures!—sandal wood and scent
With nard and cassia and with roses blent.
Let in the sunshine.
Quaint cabinets are here, boxes and fans,
And hoarded letters full of hopes and plans.
I pass them by. I came once more to see
The old piano, dear to memory,
In past days mine.
Of all sad voices from forgotten years,
Its is the saddest; see what tender tears
Drop on the yellow keys as, soft and slow,
I play some melody of long ago.
How strange it seems!
The thin, weak notes that once were rich and strong
Give only now the shadow of a song—
The dying echo of the fuller strain
That I shall never, never hear again,
Unless in dreams.
What hands have touched it! Fingers small and white,
Since stiff and weary with life’s toil and fight;
Dear clinging hands that long have been at rest,
Folded serenely on a quiet breast.
Only to think,
O white sad notes, of all the pleasant days,
The happy songs, the hymns of holy praise,
The dreams of love and youth, that round you cling!
Do they not make each sighing, trembling string
A mighty link?
The old piano answers to my call,
And from my fingers lets the lost notes fall.
O soul! that I have loved, with heavenly birth
Wilt thou not keep the memory of earth,
Its smiles and sighs?
Shall wood and metal and white ivory
Answer the touch of love with melody,
And thou forget? Dear one, not so.
I move thee yet (though how I may not know)
Beyond the skies.
