MISS ALICE FRENCH.
(Octave Thanet).
THE REPRESENTATIVE NOVELIST OF THE SOUTHWEST.
S one of the most prominent among our modern women novelists stands the name of Octave Thanet. The real owner of this widely known pen-name is Miss Alice French. Though Miss French is recognized as the representative novelist of Missouri, Arkansas, and the Southwest generally, where she has lived for many years, she is by birth and education a genuine Yankee woman, and on both sides a descendant from old Puritan stock. Her ancestors came over in the Mayflower. They count among them many Revolutionary heroes and not a few persecutors of the witches one hundred and fifty and two hundred years ago, and they, also, number to themselves some of the modern rulers and prominent ministers of Massachusetts.
Mr. French, the father of the authoress, was during his life a loyal Westerner, but it is said never lost his fondness for the East and went there regularly every summer, and his daughter still maintains the custom. While Mr. French was a thorough business man, he was, moreover, an enthusiastic lover of books and the fine arts, and instilled into Miss Alice during her early training a love for reading, and encouraged her to write.
Shortly after her graduation at Abbott Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Miss French sent a manuscript for publication, but the editors to whom she sent it advised her to wait until her judgment was more mature and her reading more extensive. She accepted their advice and remained silent for several years, and then sent her first book, “The Communist’s Wife,” to a New York publisher, who declined it, whereupon she forwarded it to other publishers, and it was finally brought out by Lippincotts of Philadelphia, and made such a success that assured easy access for her subsequent works, through any publisher to whom she would send them, to the reading world. The royalty on her various books now brings her a handsome and steady income.
Among the most prominent publications of Octave Thanet’s are “Knitters in the Sun” (Boston, 1887); “Otto the Knight” (1888); “Expiated” and “We All,” issued from New York in 1890. Since that date she has written several other volumes of equal merit, each new book adding to her well-established reputation and popularity. She has also edited the best “Letters of Lady Montague.”
The pen-name of this writer was the result of chance. When in school she had a room-mate, Octavia, who was familiarly known as Octave. The word Thanet she saw by chance printed on a passing freight car. It struck her fancy and she adopted it; hence the pseudonym “Octave Thanet.” It is said that she regrets having adopted a nom-de-plume, but since she has made her fame under that name she continues to use it. Miss French is something of a philosopher and artist as well as a novelist, and is deeply read in historical studies as well as the English-German philosophers. She is one of the most domestic of women and declares that she is a great deal better cook than a writer, and that it is a positive delight to her to arrange a dinner. Most prominent women have a fad, and that of Miss French is for collecting china. She is also fond of outdoor sports and takes considerable interest in politics. While not an advocate of woman’s suffrage, she declares herself to be a moderate free-trade Democrat, and a firm believer in honest money. Whether the latter term implies a single gold standard or the free coinage of silver, the writer is unable to ascertain.
The strength of Octave Thanet’s writing is largely due to the fact that she studies her subjects assiduously, going to original sources for her pictures of bygone times, and getting both facts and impressions so far as possible from the fountain-head. She is regarded not only as the best delineator of the life of the middle Western States, but the most careful student of human nature, and, perhaps the best storyteller among our modern short-story writers. She lives a simple life on a farm and draws her characters from the people around about her.
TWO LOST AND FOUND.[¹]
[FROM “KNITTERS IN THE SUN.”]
[¹] By Permission [♦]Houghton Mifflin & Co.
[♦] ‘Hougton’ replaced with ‘Houghton’
HEY rode along, Ruffner furtively watching Bud, until finally the elder man spoke with the directness of primitive natures and strong excitement:
“Whut’s come ter ye, Bud Quinn? Ye seem all broke up ’beout this yere losin’ yo’ little trick (child); yet ye didn’t useter set no gre’t store by ’er—least, looked like—”
“I knaw,” answered Bud, lifting his heavy eyes, too numb himself with weariness and misery to be surprised,—“I knaw, an’ ’t are curi’s ter me too. I didn’t set no store by ’er w’en I had ’er. I taken a gredge agin ’er kase she hadn’t got no good sense, an’ you all throwed it up to me fur a jedgment. An’ knowin’ how I hadn’t done a thing to hurt Zed, it looked cl’ar agin right an’ natur’ fur the Lord ter pester me that a-way; so someways I taken the notion ’twar the devil, and that he got inter Ma’ Bowlin’, an’ I mos’ cudn’t b’ar the sight ’er that pore little critter. But the day she got lost kase ’er tryin’ ter meet up with me, I ’lowed mabbe he tolled ’er off, an’ I sorter felt bad fur ’er, an’ w’en I seen them little tracks ’er her’n, someways all them mean feelin’s I got they jes broked off short insider me like a string mought snap. They done so. An’ I wanted thet chile bader’n I ever wanted anything.”
“Law me!” said Ruffner, quite puzzled. “But, say, Bud, ef ye want ’er so bad ’s all thet, ye warn’t wanter mad the Lord by lyin’, kase He are yo’ on’y show now. Bud Quinn, did ye hurt my boy?” He had pushed his face close to Bud’s, and his mild eyes were glowing like live coals.
“Naw, Mr. Ruffner,” answered Bud, quietly. “I never teched a ha’r ’er ’is head!”
Ruffner kept his eager and almost fierce scrutiny a moment, then he drew a long gasping sigh, crying,
“Blame my skin ef I don’ b’lieve ye! I’ve ’lowed, fur a right smart, we all used ye mighty rough.”
“’Tain’t no differ,” said Bud, dully. Nothing mattered now, the poor fellow thought; Ma’ Bowlin’ was dead, and Sukey hated him.
Ruffner whistled slowly and dolefully; that was his way of expressing sympathy; but the whistle died on his lips, for Bud smote his shoulder, then pointed toward the trees.
“Look a-thar!” whispered Bud, with a ghastly face and dilating eyeballs. “Oh, Lord A’mighty, thar’s her—an’ him!”
Ruffner saw a boat leisurely propelled by a long pole approaching from the river-side, a black-haired young man in the bow with the pole, a fair-haired little girl in the stern. The little girl jumped up, and at the same instant a shower of water from light flying heels blinded the young man.
“Paw! Paw!” screamed the little girl. “Maw tole Ma’ Bowlin’—meet up—paw!”
Just as the big clock in the store struck the last stroke of six, Sukey Quinn, who had been cowering on the platform steps, lifted her head and put her hand to her ear. Then everybody heard it, the long peal of a horn. The widow from Georgia ran quickly up to Sukey and threw her arms about her shoulders. For a second the people held their breath. It had been arranged that whoever found the lost child should give the signal by blowing his horn, once if the searchers came too late, three times if the child should be alive. Would the horn blow again?
“It are Bud’s horn!” sobbed Sukey. “He’d never blow fur onst. Hark! Thar’t goes agin! Three times! An’ me wouldn’t hev no truck with ’im, but she set store by Ma’ Bowlin’ all the time.”
Horn after horn caught up the signal joyfully, and when the legitimate blowing was over, two enterprising boys exhausted themselves on a venerable horn which was so cracked that no one would take it. In an incredibly short time every soul within hearing distance, not to mention a herd of cattle and a large number of swine, had run to the store, and when at last two horses’ heads appeared above the hill, and the crowd could see a little pink sun-bonnet against Bud Quinn’s brown jean, an immense clamor rolled out.
