We were soon comfortably settled, and on the first of January I had finished the ninth chapter of my first serial for Mr. Edwin Bonner, called “A Sister to Esau.” On the eighth of February it was finished. But the press of business, and the proposals of various publishers, seems to have really made me very unhappy. In a note on the twenty-third of February, when I had had a great deal of business to attend to, I wrote at night, “I am sad and weary with the day, and feel terribly unfit for the considerations I have to face. I have a sense of being politely bullied, and of having suffered a loss of some 428 kind—spiritual, mental or financial—perhaps something in all respects.”
I was much interrupted by callers in East Orange, a great many of whom brought manuscripts, which they were sure I would like to read, and could easily place for them. I had a heartache for the peace and solitude of the little cottage on the mountain. Now the dream of every English man and woman is a home of their own, and I saw this to be a possibility now; and I could think of no place but Cherry Croft. I wanted it for my own. Then I could put in a proper furnace and make it habitable all the year round.
I had finished Mr. Bonner’s serial on the eighth of February; on the fifteenth of February, I began for Lippincott’s “A Rose of A Hundred Leaves.” Its heroine, Aspatria, was one of my favorites. She dwelt among the Fells in one of those large, comfortable farm or manor houses, occupied for centuries by the Sheep Lords of the North Country. I always knew what she was going to do. Sometimes I have wondered, if Amelia had once been Aspatria. Her brothers seemed so near and real to me, and she lived in just such a home, as I have had glimpses of, whenever the Past comes back to me. I finished the book on the fifteenth of March, and Mr. Mead praised the story, which pleased me, because it was the first time he had ever expressed satisfaction with my work.
On the twentieth I went to Cornwall, and bought Cherry Croft, paying for it six thousand dollars in cash. Some told me I had paid too much, others too little, but I was satisfied. The house was not worth much, but there was nearly four acres of land full of fruit and forest trees. And there were the mountains, and the river, and the wide valley view, and that general peace and quiet, that has in it a kind of sacramental efficacy.
“Cherry Croft,” Cornwall-on-Hudson
I had at this time a great deal of trouble with English houses printing my work, without either payment or permission, and a laughable but provoking incident occurred with the proof-reading of “A Sister to Esau.” In this story, my chief character is a Scotch gentleman, of the most perfervid Calvinism, and the period of the story was the glorious ecclesiastical 429 “departure” of the Free Kirk. Now Mr. Bonner’s proofreader happened to be a strict, strait Methodist, and he altered all the Calvinism to Methodism, which was sheer nonsense in the mouth of a Scotch Chief, and a seceding Free Kirker. However as soon as I explained the circumstances to Mr. Bonner he had the text restored as written, with many apologies for his Methodist proofreader’s conscience.
The whole summer was spent in writing Mr. Bonner’s second serial, “Love for an Hour Is Love Forever;” and in attending to the alterations going on in my home. Every room that was papered and painted afresh, was a new pleasure; and I had a fine garden, and began to plant vines, and to make an asparagus bed. Also, I made preparations for the winter’s comfort by putting in a hot water furnace, and then I began a novelette called “Femmetia’s Experience” for Mr. Bonner. It was a reincarnation story, and had a large sale, though at the time, the doctrine was but looming up on my spiritual horizon. The main facts of this story had been told me by an old lady when I lived in Boroughbridge, and was only twelve years old. Dr. Deems came to see us just as I had finished the story, and I spoke of its tendency and he said he had a strong leaning to the old heresy, that it had never died out of the heart and imaginations of men, and was steadily gaining a new growth.
I ought to have had a very happy summer, for I had my own home, good health, and all the work that I could do; but how often below this calm idyllic surface of life, there is some fateful, domestic sorrow! It is likely met with the heroism and devoted affection of the old Greek tragedy, but there it is! and it has to be borne as best it may. I found in love and work the strength and consolation, the heavy-hearted of the Greek world never knew. It brings tears to my eyes yet, to read the short, pitiful entries of that cruel November. Yet I finished “Femmetia’s Experience” and wrote also a novelette for Bonner called “The Mate of the Easter Bell,” and other short articles. For in mental grief, mental work is a great salvation. I worked hard, though I was often compelled to lay down my pencil to seek the strength and comfort found only by “fleeing to the 430 Rock that is higher than I.” At the last, all was well. The gay handsome Captain M—— passed out of our lives, and Lilly bore the breaking of the tie better than I expected.