“‘Well,’ said the other, ‘but you see I don’t believe it.’

“‘And I’ll bet you a gray squirrel that I’ll go there this very evening, and get him to like me and my flute both,’ said James.”

It is needless to say that the clever Jim carried this out to the letter. He went there that evening; he drove Uncle Tim’s sheep out of the garden, praised the old man’s bell-flower apples, told stories at the table, proved that it was not irreverent to use the flute even in church, and made Uncle Tim admit it; in short he made himself here, as everywhere, the great favorite. The story turns out as it should, and the Uncle is filled with joy at the outcome.

This was the substance of the first real story that Harriet Beecher wrote. It was a simple little story, but it gave promise of the abilities that she later showed not only in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” but in the long series of even more artistic, if not more influential, works in which she has enshrined for us the fading memories of old New England traditions and customs.

Perhaps when we see the lively quality of this story, and of other sketches of this period of Harriet Beecher’s life, we may wonder what has happened to her, and may exclaim how she has changed from the profound theological discussions of the Litchfield days! Is this romantic and blithesome spirit the same one that shivered and was so stoical in the chillness of the Litchfield Hills! How shall we account for it?

Well, she has come out into the great boundless west whose free spirit has set her free—that is one way to account for the change. Then, those earlier studies and tastes may be considered as her attempts to find her way in the philosophies of the human mind, a struggle from which she gradually desisted after she had hit upon a practical and satisfying view of her own, which by showing her how to discharge each day’s duty, fulfilled her needs. We must recall, too, who were her favorites among the few great romantic writers that she was able to find in her father’s sermon-barrels. “The Arabian Nights,” “Don Quixote,” and above all, Sir Walter Scott were her great discoveries in Dr. Beecher’s garret. We must remember how well she loved Byron and how many times she read “Ivanhoe” through in one summer! Thinking of all this, we realize how she was being prepared to use the novel as the best expression for her thought when the time should come when she felt she must speak out something God had given to her to say.

Meantime she wrote many little sketches and stories and sent them to various magazines: the Western Monthly, the New York Independent, the Godey’s Ladies’ Book, printed them and paid for them. In this way her training in the art of composing a story was going on steadily.

CHAPTER XIII
MRS. STOWE THE HOME-MAKER

In January, 1836, Harriet Beecher and Calvin Edward Stowe were quietly married. A few days later they took a brief wedding journey, going by stage as far as Columbus; but the roads in an Ohio midwinter were not much to boast of, and, as a pleasant journey, the trip was not a success. They were happier when they returned to their own fireside and sat down there peacefully together. Mrs. Stowe was rather astonished to find that such a “wisp of nerve” as herself could pass through the wedding experience with a happiness that was tranquil and serene rather than overwhelming.

If she had been able to look into the future, however, she must have been appalled by the view. The darkest period of her life was before her, a time to try the stoutest soul, a stretch of fourteen years of struggle with narrowing means and increasing cares. The Seminary that her father had come into the west to found, and in which Professor Stowe was the chief pillar of scholarship, did not for various reasons unconnected with either of these noble self-sacrificing men, increase in size and financial support as they had hoped it would. Students became fewer and salaries more and more meager. At last Professor Stowe, convinced that he could no longer carry the forlorn hope of that western work with any justice to his family, accepted one of several offers that came to him to enter upon more advantageous professional work in the east and removed to Bowdoin College, his own alma mater, in Brunswick, Maine.