CONTENTS

PAGE
FOREWORD, by William Rose Benét[ XIII]
NATHALIA AT TEN, by Nunnally Johnson [ XVII]
THE JANITOR’S BOY[ 23]
OH, ROGER JONES[ 24]
THE FLATHOUSE ROOF[ 25]
JOHN PAUL JONES[ 26]
THE ROVERS[ 27]
THE VACANT LOT[ 29]
THE SWINGING STAIR[ 31]
THE VESTAL[ 32]
THE BLIND GIRL[ 33]
PRESCIENCE[ 34]
LOVE[ 35]
WHAT EVERY GIRL KNOWS[ 36]
JEALOUSY[ 37]
MOTHER’S BONNET[ 38]
THE RAG BAG[ 39]
THE FIRST SNOW STORM[ 40]
SUFFERING[ 41]
THE MAP MAKERS[ 42]
DIANA[ 43]
THE READING BOY[ 44]
THE BATTLE ON THE FLOOR[ 45]
MID-DAY AT TRINITY[ 47]
CASTLE “BILL”[ 48]
CASTLE WILLIAM[ 49]
THE ROLL OF THE ROSES[ 50]
THE GOSSIPS[ 51]
TO-MORROW[ 52]
THE ROSE OF REST[ 53]
THE SYMBOLS[ 54]
THE SALAMANDER ISLES[ 55]
THE CHESS GAME[ 56]
THE DINOSAURS’ EGGS[ 58]
THE FIRST STORY[ 59]
THE THREE-CORNERED LOT[ 60]
THE HISTORY OF HONEY[ 61]
THE HISTORY OF PAINTING[ 63]
THE ROAD TO ROSLYN[ 65]
THE ARMY LAUNDRESS[ 67]
REGINA MENDOSENA[ 68]
THE GIRL FROM SOAPSUDS ROW[ 69]
EVA[ 72]
OLD MAID’S REVERIE[ 73]
THE COMMONPLACE[ 74]
BERKLEY COMMON[ 75]
CHOICE[ 76]
THE FIRE VASE[ 77]
MY HUSBANDS[ 78]
AFTERWORD, by Edmund Leamy[ 81]

FOREWORD

When I took the two poems from Nathalia’s mother, and promised to read them, I had seen none of the press notices of Miss Crane’s talent. Being only a quasi-journalist I seldom read the newspapers. I am extremely skeptical of infant prodigies, and the poems of Nathalia’s that I have since seen most quoted in newspaper articles about her are just what you would expect. They prove nothing except that she is a little girl with a lively fancy. Certain poems in this first collection, however, seem to me to prove something more.

Some long time ago in Scotland there was a little girl named Marjorie Fleming, and to-day a twelve-year-old, Helen Douglas Adam, the daughter of a Scotch parson and his wife of Dundee, is her successor overseas to the juvenile purple. Miss Adam has now been published both in England and America. Yet the best poems of hers that I have read do not seem to me to possess such individuality or such maturity of melody and diction as Miss Crane’s best poems. Then there is our own Hilda Conkling, whose mother is a distinguished American poet, and who writes in free verse and has published several volumes of poems. Hilda is a real poet. But she has never grappled with and conquered certain problems of poetic structure from which Miss Crane, by sheer instinct, seems to have wrested occasional victory.

I took the two poems from Nathalia’s mother; and first I read The Blind Girl. I came upon the two verses:

In the darkness who would answer for the color of a rose,