Chapter 32

Main Travelled Roads

My second visit to the West confirmed me in all my sorrowful notions of life on the plain, and I resumed my writing in a mood of bitter resentment, with full intention of telling the truth about western farm life, irrespective of the land-boomer or the politicians. I do not defend this mood, I merely report it.

In this spirit I finished a story which I called _A Prairie Heroine_ (in order that no one should mistake my meaning, for it was the study of a crisis in the life of a despairing farmer's wife), and while even here, I did not tell the whole truth, I succeeded in suggesting to the sympathetic observer a tragic and hopeless common case.

It was a tract, that must be admitted, and realizing this, knowing that it was entirely too grim to find a place in the pages of the _Century_ or _Harper's_ I decided to send it to the _Arena_, a new Boston review whose spirit, so I had been told, was frankly radical.

A few days later I was amazed to receive from the editor a letter of acceptance enclosing a check, but a paragraph in the letter astonished me more than the check which was for one hundred dollars.

"I herewith enclose a check," wrote the editor, "which I hope you will accept in payment of your story.... I note that you have cut out certain paragraphs of description with the fear, no doubt, that the editor would object to them. I hope you will restore the manuscript to its original form and return it. When I ask a man to write for me, I want him to utter his mind with perfect freedom. My magazine is not one that is afraid of strong opinions."

This statement backed up by the writer's signature on a blue slip produced in me a moment of stupefaction. Entertaining no real hope of acceptance, I had sent the manuscript in accordance with my principle of trying every avenue, and to get such an answer--an immediate answer--with a check!

As soon as I recovered the use of my head and hand, I replied in eager acknowledgment. I do not recall the precise words of my letter, but it brought about an early meeting between B. O. Flower, the editor, and myself.

Flower's personality pleased me. Hardly more than a boy at this time, he met me with the friendliest smile, and in our talk we discovered many common lines of thought.

"Your story," he said, "is the kind of fiction I need. If you have any more of that sort let me see it. My magazine is primarily for discussion but I want to include at least one story in each issue. I cannot match the prices of magazines like the _Century_ of course, but I will do the best I can for you."

It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of this meeting to me, for no matter what anyone may now say of the _Arena's_ logic or literary style, its editor's life was nobly altruistic. I have never known a man who strove more single-heartedly for social progress, than B. O. Flower. He was the embodiment of unselfish public service, and his ready sympathy for every genuine reform made his editorial office a center of civic zeal. As champions of various causes we all met in his open lists.

In the months which followed he accepted for his magazine several of my short stories and bought and printed _Under the Wheel_, an entire play, not to mention an essay or two on _The New Declaration of Rights_. He named me among his "regular contributors," and became not merely my comforter and active supporter but my banker, for the regularity of his payments raised me to comparative security. I was able to write home the most encouraging reports of my progress.

At about the same time (or a little later) the _Century_ accepted a short story which I called _A Spring Romance_, and a three-part tale of Wisconsin. For these I received nearly five hundred dollars! Accompanying the note of acceptance was a personal letter from Richard Watson Gilder, so hearty in its words of appreciation that I was assured of another and more distinctive avenue of expression.

It meant something to get into the _Century_ in those days. The praise of its editor was equivalent to a diploma. I regarded Gilder as second only to Howells in all that had to do with the judgment of fiction. Flower's interests were ethical, Gilder's esthetic, and after all my ideals were essentially literary. My reform notions were subordinate to my desire to take honors as a novelist.

I cannot be quite sure of the precise date of this good fortune, but I think it must have been in the winter of 1890 for I remember writing a lofty letter to my father, in which I said, "If you want any money, let me know."

As it happened he had need of seed wheat, and it was with deep satisfaction that I repaid the money I had borrowed of him, together with three hundred dollars more and so faced the new year clear of debt.

Like the miner who, having suddenly uncovered a hidden vein of gold, bends to his pick in a confident belief in his "find" so I humped above my desk without doubts, without hesitations. I had found my work in the world. If I had any thought of investment at this time, which I am sure I had not, it was concerned with the west. I had no notion of settling permanently in the east.

My success in entering both the _Century_ and the _Arena_ emboldened me to say to Dr. Cross, "I shall be glad to come down out of the attic and take a full-sized chamber at regular rates."

Alas! he had no such room, and so after much perturbation, my brother and I hired a little apartment on Moreland street in Roxbury and moved into it joyously. With a few dollars in my pocket, I went so far as to buy a couple of pictures and a new book rack, the first property I had ever owned, and when, on that first night, with everything in place we looked around upon our "suite," we glowed with such exultant pride as only struggling youth can feel. After years of privation, I had, at last, secured a niche in the frowning escarpment of Boston's social palisade.

Frank was twenty-seven, I was thirty, and had it not been for a haunting sense of our father's defeat and a growing fear of mother's decline, we would have been entirely content. "How can we share our good fortune with her and with sister Jessie?" was the question which troubled us most. Jessie's fate seemed especially dreary by contrast with our busy and colorful life.

"We can't bring them here," I argued. "They would never be happy here. Father is a borderman. He would enjoy coming east on a visit, but to shut him up in Boston would be like caging an eagle. The case seems hopeless."

The more we discussed it the more insoluble the problem became. The best we could do was to write often and to plan for frequent visits to them.

One day, late in March, Flower, who had been using my stories in almost every issue of his magazine, said to me: "Why don't you put together some of your tales of the west, and let us bring them out in book form? I believe they would have instant success."

His words delighted me for I had not yet begun to hope for an appearance as the author of a book. Setting to work at once to prepare such a