BY C. F. SHERIFF.
... "When Ed. Coe, of Whitewater, Wisconsin, began some twelve years ago publishing Cold Spring items, signed by 'Greenhorn,' he published the first lines I ever wrote, at which time some spirit (or some unseen thing) seemed to be always whispering in my ear that I must write a book.
"Never could I drive from me these thoughts, and situated as I was, with plenty of farm work to do, no education at all, no knowledge of such business, no friends to help me, but lots to kick me down, I can tell you I was pretty well discouraged, and if I had not had lots of courage, the contents of this book would not have been written.
"This work is the only kind of work that I can get interested in, and should I pass to the mysterious beyond without gaining any name in this way, I would declare with my last breath that my life, as far as myself was concerned, had been a failure."
DEW DROPS
Something of the same impulse is found in this dedication of the volume "Dew Drops," by Leda Bond (Mrs. Feldsmith).
"This little book is fondly dedicated to Raymond and Leotta, my two beloved children, who, when the shades of sorrow closed around me, stretched forth their baby fingers, and parting the curtains of gloom, revealed once more the gladsome light of a happier day."
We feel that the names of some of these courageous and happy pioneers should be given in this volume, together with brief selections from some of their works. Some of the verses here given will show sure sense of rhyme and pleasing balance and reserve. Some have, it is true, little to commend them but the evident longing to express the song that was in the soul rather than on the lips. But who can say how much the more successful ones, who have won deserved fame and plaudits, owe to the more obscure who sought, with more meagre measure of success, to show that there is poetry and song and story in Wisconsin?
POEMS OF A DAY.
A Collection of Fugitive Poems Written Among the Cares and Labors of Daily Journalism.
By A. M. THOMSON.
(Then Editor of the Sentinel), Milwaukee, 1873.