"Yes, that may be. Quite likely, in fact."
Of no novel was the secret of the authorship ever so well kept as was that of The Breadwinners, which, published anonymously in 1883, was the talk of literary circles for a long time, and speculation as to its authorship was renewed in the newspapers for years afterward. Bok wanted very much to find out the author's name so that he could announce it in his literary letter. He had his suspicions, but they were not well founded until an amusing little incident occurred which curiously revealed the secret to him.
Bok was waiting to see one of the members of a publishing firm when a well-known English publisher, visiting in America, was being escorted out of the office, the conversation continuing as the two gentlemen walked through the outer rooms. "My chief reason," said the English publisher, as he stopped at the end of the outer office where Bok was sitting, "for hesitating at all about taking an English set of plates of the novel you speak of is because it is of anonymous authorship, a custom of writing which has grown out of all decent proportions in your country since the issue of that stupid book, The Breadwinners."
As these last words were spoken, a man seated at a desk directly behind the speaker looked up, smiled, and resumed reading a document which he had dropped in to sign. A smile also spread over the countenance of the American publisher as he furtively glanced over the shoulder of the English visitor and caught the eye of the smiling man at the desk.
Bok saw the little comedy, realized at once that he had discovered the author of The Breadwinners, and stated to the publisher that he intended to use the incident in his literary letter. But it proved to be one of those heart-rending instances of a delicious morsel of news that must be withheld from the journalist's use. The publisher acknowledged that Bok had happened upon the true authorship, but placed him upon his honor to make no use of the incident. And Bok learned again the vital journalistic lesson that there are a great many things in the world that the journalist knows and yet cannot write about. He would have been years in advance of the announcement finally made that John Hay wrote the novel.
At another time, while waiting, Bok had an experience which, while interesting, was saddening instead of amusing. He was sitting in Mark Twain's sitting-room in his home in Hartford waiting for the humorist to return from a walk. Suddenly sounds of devotional singing came in through the open window from the direction of the outer conservatory. The singing was low, yet the sad tremor in the voice seemed to give it special carrying power.
"You have quite a devotional servant," Bok said to a maid who was dusting the room.
"Oh, that is not a servant who is singing, sir," was the answer. "You can step to this window and see for yourself."
Bok did so, and there, sitting alone on one of the rustic benches in the flower-house, was a small, elderly woman. Keeping time with the first finger of her right hand, as if with a baton, she was slightly swaying her frail body as she sang, softly yet sweetly, Charles Wesley's hymn, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and Sarah Flower Adams's "Nearer, My God, to Thee."
But the singer was not a servant. It was Harriet Beecher Stowe!