HIS MOTHER WAS BOTH PRACTICAL AND POETIC.
“I am a very serious man at heart,” he remarked to me, “but, fortunately, I have a sense of humor. I will confess that the attention attracted by ‘The Man with the Hoe’ has surprised me, and the comments of some of the gentlemen who have condescended to criticise the poem are amusing. They seem to miss entirely its true spirit and meaning, and yet speak with most complacent confidence. I,— O, you want me to start at the beginning of my life and proceed in an orderly manner, do you? Well, I have said little for print about my early days, but get out your pencil and I will dictate you something.
“That most important event, my birth, occurred in Oregon City, Oregon, on April 23, 1852. My schooling began when I was about four years old, in a primitive little school in my native town.
“While he instilled in my youthful mind the principles of the alphabet and other important knowledge, it was the influence of my mother,—my father having died,—that dominated me. She was, in some respects, the most extraordinary woman I have ever known,—a woman of strong likes and dislikes, and capable of holding on to a purpose to the end. She kept a large store of general merchandise in Oregon City, and conducted the business with remarkable energy. But, despite her hard common sense and practical ability, she was known as the ‘Woman Poet of Oregon.’ It was from her, of course, that I got my own poetical bent. Her poetry was full of feeling and earnestness, and was impressed with a strong religious spirit. It was published chiefly in newspapers at the time, and I presume I am the only person in the world who now has any of it.”
HE GAINED VALUABLE DISCIPLINE ON A FARM.
“When I was still a small boy, mother moved to California. She settled in a little wild valley amid the hills in the central part of the state, on a sheep range that she had bought. I was chief herder. All day long I followed the herd over ridge and hollow, and along the hillsides into the blue distance. I absorbed woodcraft and weather-wit, and a love of nature which has been one of the predominating influences of my life.
“After a few years, we turned our place into a cattle range and farm, with myself as chief farmer. I was just entering my ‘teens’ then. I fenced and plowed the land straggling up the little valley, and learned every detail of a farmer’s work and life. The hoe, the shovel, the scythe, the cradle, the reaper, the threshing machine, the grafting knife,—these are all old friends of mine. When I began to near young manhood, I became a thresher, going from farm to farm, helping to thresh out the grain after the harvest home, and often sleeping at night in hay-mows.
BYRON’S POEMS INSPIRED HIM.
“Meanwhile, I devoured all the poetry I could find. I read Byron’s poems more than any other’s, because a complete set of his works was at hand, and as a result of his influence I wrote, when about sixteen, a very ambitious poem called, ‘A Dream of Chaos.’ This was only one of my youthful indiscretions in the poetical line. No, I don’t believe the general public will ever be asked to read them. It has been kind to me, and deserves fair treatment.”
“But, Mr. Markham, did you not find that your hard farm labor tended to crush out the poetry, and finer feelings generally?”