In January, 1911, over 2,000,000 copies of Mrs. Wiggin’s books had been sold; to-day the total is probably approaching 3,000,000. The most popular of her books is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which has been likened, in explanation of its popularity, to Little Women. But no explanation is necessary. Rebecca is entirely, naturally human. Whether she is perplexing her aunts or telling Miss Dearborn that she can’t write about nature and slavery, having really nothing to say about either; whether she is making her report on the missionaries’ children “all born under Syrian skies,” or aweing Emma Jane with original ideas, or helping the Simpsons, with the aid of Mr. Aladdin, to acquire a wonderful lamp;—at all times, at every moment Rebecca Rowena Randall reminds us of the youngsters we have known, and perhaps, a little, of the youngsters we were once ourselves.
The triumph of naturalness, the perfect fidelity to the life of the child; these explain Rebecca and Rebecca’s success, signalized less in the selling of hundreds of thousands of copies, in the acting of the play made from the book for months and months and months, than in the joyous recognition with which Mrs. Wiggin’s heroine was greeted. Rebecca inditing the couplet:
“When Joy and Duty clash
Let Duty go to smash”—
Rebecca playing on the tinkling old piano, “Wild roved an Indian girl, bright Alfarata,” Rebecca doing this, thinking that, saying the thing that needs to be said—generous, romantic, resourceful and brighter than her surroundings—is a person it does us all good to know. Copies of the book in libraries are read to shreds. The world, which can see through any sham, loves this story. The world is right. To learn, in the words of one of Conrad’s heroes, to live, to love and to put your trust in life is all that matters. Mrs. Wiggin shows us how.
Books by Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Birds’ Christmas Carol, 1886.
The Story of Patsy, 1889.
A Summer in a Canyon, 1889.
Timothy’s Quest, 1890.
The Story Hour, 1890. (With Nora A. Smith, her sister.)
Children’s Rights, 1892. (With Nora A. Smith.)
A Cathedral Courtship and Penelope’s English Experiences, 1893.
Polly Oliver’s Problem, 1893.
The Village Watch-Tower, 1895.
Froebel’s Gifts, 1895. (With Nora A. Smith.)
Froebel’s Occupations, 1896. (With Nora A. Smith.)
Kindergarten Principles and Practice, 1896. (With Nora A. Smith.)
Marm Lisa, 1896.
Nine Love Songs, And A Carol, 1896. (Music by Mrs. Wiggin to words by Herrick, Sill, and others.)
Penelope’s Progress, 1898.
Penelope’s Scottish Experiences, 1900.
Penelope’s Irish Experiences, 1901.
The Diary of a Goose Girl, 1902.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1903.
The Affair at the Inn, 1904. (With Mary and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay.)
Rose o’ the River, 1905.
New Chronicles of Rebecca, 1907.
Finding a Home, 1907.
The Flag Raising, 1907.
The Old Peabody Pew, 1907.
Susanna and Sue, 1909.
Robinetta, 1911. (With Mary and Jane Findlater and Allan McAulay.)
Mother Carey’s Chickens, 1911.
A Child’s Journey With Dickens, 1912.
The Story of Waitstill Baxter, 1913.
Penelope’s Postscripts, 1915.
The Romance of a Christmas Card, 1916.
Golden Numbers, 1917.
The Posy Ring, 1917.
Ladies in Waiting, 1919.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
CHAPTER XI
MARY JOHNSTON
“DIDN’T you ever notice, Aunt Lucy,” asks Molly Cary on page 32 of Mary Johnston’s novel, The Long Roll, “how everybody really belongs in a book?”
It is the very question Mary Johnston herself has been asking these twenty years, ever since Prisoners of Hope announced to the world the advent of a new American writer, a woman, to whom it would be necessary to pay respectful attention, to whom it would be wise to give that special admiration reserved for the artist regardless of sex or nativity. Everybody really does belong in a book, especially Mary Johnston in a book upon American women novelists! Prepare, then, for a discursive chapter. Prepare to consider literary genius. Miss Johnston has something, or several things, which no amount of analysis can entirely label and no consideration of circumstances wholly account for.