When thirteen years of age she discovered that the older girls in the school were studying French, when she was not, and she went to her father with the request that she be permitted to join the class. But the rector's question, "May, would you put in your furniture before you built your walls?" sent her back to her Latin and mathematics without further protest. She attended the school for eleven years, and at it received her education, never having attended any other institution. On November 26, 1877, when the future writer was seventeen years of age, her father accepted the rectorship of Christ Church, New York, and the family shortly afterwards removed to that city. She has been in Kentucky but twice since: five years after her departure, and about ten years ago. But that she has not forgotten her Kentucky home is evinced in the signed copies of her books which have found their way to the Blue Grass country and in her letters to former friends. On the last day of December, 1884, Miss Shipman married William Shankland Andrews, now associate justice of the supreme court of New York. Mrs. Andrews spends her summers in the Canadian woods, and the winters at her home in Syracuse, New York. Her first novel, _Vive L'Empereur_ (New York, 1902), a story of the king of Rome, was followed by _A Kidnapped Colony_ (New York, 1903), with Bermuda as the background. _Bob and the Guides_ (New York, 1906), was the experiences of a boy, "Bob," with the French guides of the Canadian woods who pursue caribou. _A Good Samaritan_ (New York, 1906), has been called the best story ever printed in _McClure's Magazine_, in which form it first appeared. _The Perfect Tribute_ (New York, 1906), a quasi-true story of Lincoln and the lack of enthusiasm with which the crowd received his Gettysburg speech, adorned with a love episode at the end, is Mrs. Andrews's finest thing so far. This little tale has made her famous, and stamped her as one of the best American writers of the short-story. It was originally printed in _Scribner's Magazine_ for July, 1906. Her other books are: _The Militants_ (New York, 1907), a collection of stories, several of which are set in Kentucky, and all of them inscribed to her father in beautiful words; _The Better Treasure_ (Indianapolis, 1908), is a charming Christmas story, with a moral attached; _The Enchanted Forest and Other Stories_ (New York, 1909), a group of stories first told to her son and afterwards set down for other people's sons; _The Lifted Bandage_ (New York, 1910), a most unpleasant, disagreeable tale as may well be imagined; _The Courage of the Commonplace_ (New York, 1911), a yarn of Yale and her ways, one of the author's cleverest things; _The Counsel Assigned_ (New York, 1912), another story of Lincoln, this time as the young lawyer, is not greatly inferior to _The Perfect_ _Tribute_. Mrs. Andrews's latest volume, _The Marshal_ (Indianapolis, 1912), is her first really long novel. It is a story of France, somewhat in the manner of her first book _Vive L'Empereur_, but, of course, much finer than that work of her 'prentice years. It has been highly praised in some quarters, and rather severely criticized in others. At any rate it has not displaced _The Perfect Tribute_ as her masterpiece. That little story, with _A Good Samaritan_, _The Courage of the Commonplace_, and _Crowned with Glory and Honor_, fairly entitle Mrs. Andrews to the first and highest place among Kentucky women writers of the short-story. She has attained a higher note in a most difficult art than any other woman Kentucky has produced; and it is only right and just that her proper position be allotted her in order that she may occupy it; which she will do with a consensus of opinion when her Kentucky life is more widely heralded.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _American Magazine_ (May, 1909); _Scribner's Magazine_ (September, 1911; August, 1912).
THE NEW SUPERINTENDENT[24]
[From _The Courage of the Commonplace_ (New York, 1911)]
Three years later the boy graduated from the Boston "Tech." As his class poured from Huntington Hall, he saw his father waiting for him.
He noted with pride, as he always did, the tall figure, topped with a wonderful head--a mane of gray hair, a face carved in iron, squared and cut down to the marrow of brains and force--a man to be seen in any crowd. With that, as his own met the keen eyes behind the spectacles, he was aware of a look which startled him. The boy had graduated at the very head of his class; that light in his father's eyes all at once made two years of work a small thing.
"I didn't know you were coming, sir. That's mighty nice of you," he said, as they walked down Boylston Street together, and his father waited a moment and then spoke in his usual incisive tone.
"I wouldn't have liked to miss it, Johnny," he said. "I don't remember that anything in my life has ever made me as satisfied as you have to-day."
With a gasp of astonishment the young man looked at him, looked away, looked at the tops of the houses, and did not find a word anywhere.
His father had never spoken to him so; never before, perhaps, had he said anything as intimate to any of his sons. They knew that the cold manner of the great engineer covered depths, but they never expected to see the depths uncovered. But here he was, talking of what he felt, of character, and honor, and effort.
"I've appreciated what you have been doing," the even voice went on.
"I talk little about personal affairs. But I'm not uninterested; I watch. I was anxious about you. You were a more uncertain quantity than Ted and Harry. Your first three years at Yale were not satisfactory. I was afraid you lacked manliness. Then came--a disappointment. It was a blow to us--to family pride. I watched you more closely, and I saw before that year ended that you were taking your medicine rightly. I wanted to tell you of my contentment, but being slow of speech, I--couldn't. So"--the iron face broke for a second time into a whimsical grin--"so I offered you a motor. And you wouldn't take it. I knew, though you didn't explain, that you feared it would interfere with your studies. I was right?" Johnny nodded.
"Yes. And your last year at college was--was all I could wish. I see now that you needed a blow in the face to wake you up--and you got it.
And you waked." The great engineer smiled with clean pleasure. "I have had"--he hesitated--"I have had always a feeling of responsibility to your mother for you--more than for the others. You were so young when she died that you seem more her child. I was afraid I had not treated you right well--that it was my fault if you failed." The boy made a gesture--he could not very well speak. His father went on: "So when you refused the motor, when you went into engineers' camp that first summer, instead of going abroad, I was pleased. Your course here has been a satisfaction, without a drawback--keener, certainly, because I am an engineer, and could appreciate, step by step, how well you were doing, how much you were giving up to do it, how much power you were gaining by that long sacrifice. I've respected you through these years of commonplace, and I've known how much more courage it meant in a pleasure-loving lad such as you than it would have meant in a serious person such as I am--such as Ted and Harry are, to an extent, also."
The older man, proud and strong and reserved, turned on his son such a shining face as the boy had never seen. "That boyish failure isn't wiped out, Johnny, for I shall remember it as the corner-stone of your career, already built over with an honorable record. You've made good.
I congratulate and I honor you."
The boy never knew how he got home. He knocked his shins badly on a quite visible railing, and it was out of the question to say a single word. But if he staggered, it was with an overload of happiness, and if he was speechless and blind, the stricken faculties were paralyzed with joy. His father walked beside him and they understood each other.
He reeled up the streets contented.
That night there was a family dinner, and with the coffee his father turned and ordered fresh champagne opened.
"We must have a new explosion to drink to the new superintendent of the Oriel mine," he said. Johnny looked at him, surprised, and then at the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something which they knew and he did not.
"What's up?" asked Johnny. "Who's the superintendent of the Oriel mine? Why do we drink to him? What are you all grinning about, anyway?" The cork flew up to the ceiling, and the butler poured gold bubbles into the glasses, all but his own.
"Can't I drink to the beggar, too, whoever he is?" asked Johnny, and moved his glass and glanced up at Mullins. But his father was beaming at Mullins in a most unusual way, and Johnny got no wine. With that Ted, the oldest brother, pushed back his chair and stood and lifted his glass.
"We'll drink," he said, and bowed formally to Johnny, "to the gentleman who is covering us all with glory, to the new superintendent of the Oriel mine, Mr. John Archer McLean," and they stood and drank the toast. Johnny, more or less dizzy, more or less scarlet, crammed his hands in his pockets and stared and turned redder, and brought out interrogations in the nervous English which is acquired at our great institutions of learning.
"Gosh! are you all gone dotty?" he asked. And "is this a merry jape?"
And "Why, for cat's sake, can't you tell a fellow what's up your sleeve?" While the family sipped champagne and regarded him.
"Now, if I've squirmed for you enough, I wish you'd explain--father, tell me!" the boy begged.
And the tale was told by the family, in chorus, without politeness, interrupting freely. It seemed that the president of the big mine needed a superintendent, and wishing young blood and the latest ideas, had written to the head of the Mining Department in the School of Technology, to ask if he would give him the name of the ablest man in the graduating class--a man to be relied on for character as much as brains, he specified, for the rough army of miners needed a general at their head almost more than a scientist. Was there such a combination to be found, he asked, in a youngster of twenty-three or twenty-four, such as would be graduating at the "Tech?" If possible, he wanted a very young man--he wanted the enthusiasm, he wanted the athletic tendency, he wanted the plus-strength, he wanted the unmade reputation which would look for its making to hard work in the mine. The letter was produced and read to the shamefaced Johnny. "Gosh!" he remarked at intervals, and remarked practically nothing else. There was no need.
They were so proud and so glad that it was almost too much for the boy who had been a failure three years ago.
On the urgent insistence of every one, he made a speech. He got to his six-feet-two slowly, and his hand went into his trousers as usual. "Holy mackerel," he began--"I don't call it decent to knock the wind out of a man and then hold him up for remarks. They all said in college that I talked the darnedest hash in the class, anyway. But you will have it, will you? I haven't got anything to say, so's you'd notice it, except that I'll be blamed if I see how this is true. Of course I'm keen for it--Keen! I should say I was! And what makes me keenest, I believe, is that I know it's satisfactory to Henry McLean." He turned his bright face to his father. "Any little plugging I've done seems like thirty cents compared to that. You're all peaches to take such an interest, and I thank you a lot. Me, the superintendent of the Oriel mine! Holy mackerel!" gasped Johnny, and sat down.
FOOTNOTE:
[24] Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
ELVIRA MILLER SLAUGHTER
Mrs. Elvira (Sydnor) Miller Slaughter, the "Tatler" of _The Louisville Times_ in the old days, and a verse-writer of considerable reputation, was born at Wytheville, Virginia, October 12, 1860. When a child Miss Miller was brought to Kentucky, as her mother had inherited money which made necessary her removal to this State in order to obtain it.
She was educated at the Presentation Academy, in Louisville, by the same nuns that had instructed Mary Anderson de Navarro, the famous actress. She was subsequently gold medalist at a private finishing school, but she still clings to the Catholicism instilled at the Presentation Academy. Shortly after having left school Miss Miller published her first and only book of poems, _Songs of the Heart_ (Louisville, 1885), with a prologue by Douglass Sherley.[25] About this time her parents lost their fortune, and she secured a position on _The Louisville Times_, where she was trained by Mr. Robert W.
Brown, the present managing editor of that paper. After three years of general reporting, Miss Miller became editor of "The Tatler Column," and this she conducted for fourteen years with cleverness and success, only resigning on the day of her marriage to Mr. W. H.
Slaughter, Jr. Her second book, _The Tiger's Daughter and Other Stories_ (Louisville, 1889), is a group of fairy tales, several of which are entertaining. _The Confessions of a Tatler_ (Louisville, 1905), is a booklet of the best things she did for her department on _The Times_. She surely handled some men, women, books, and things in this brochure in a manner that even he who runs may read and--understand! From 1909 to 1912 she lived at Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, Ohio, but at the present time she is again at Louisville, engaged in literary work.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Bluegrass_, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892); _Dear Old Kentucky_, by G. M. Spears (Cincinnati, 1900).
THE SOUTH AND SONG
[From _The Midland Review_ (Louisville, Kentucky)]
I.--THE SOUTH
Spirit, whose touch of fire Wakens the sleeping lyre-- Thou, who dost flood with music heaven's dominions, Where hast thou taken flight-- Thou comfort, thou delight?
In what blest regions furled thy gloomy pinions, Since from the cold North voices call to me: "Thou South, thou South! Song hath abandoned thee!"
II.--VOICES
We cry out on the air: Thy palace halls are bare, Shorn of the glory of the dream-gods' faces: Thy sweetest strain were sung When thy proud heart was young; Fame hath no crowns, nay, nor no vacant places-- So, all in vain, thy poet-songs awaken: Thou serenadest casements long forsaken.
Thy rivers proudly flow, As in the long ago.
Like kings who lead their rushing hosts to battle: Thy sails make white the seas-- They fly before the breeze, As o'er the wide plains fly storm-drifted cattle: Laughter and light make beautiful thy portals, Spurned by the bright feet of the lost immortals.
What gavest thou to him Whose fame no years may dim, Song's great archangel, glorious, yet despairing-- Who, o'er earth's warring noises Heard Heaven's and Hell's great voices-- Who, from his shoulders the rude mantle tearing, Wrapt the thin folds about his dying wife, The angel and the May-time of his life?
And what to him whose name Is consecrate to Fame-- Whose songs before the winds of war were driven-- Who swept his lute to mourn That banner soiled and torn, For which a million valiant hearts had striven-- Who set God's cross high o'er the battling horde, And sheltered neath its arms the lyre and sword?
What gav'st thou that true heart That shrined its dreams apart, From want and care and sorrow evermore-- Him, who mid dews and damp, Burned out life's feeble lamp, Striving to keep the wolf from out his door, And while the land was ringing with his praise, Slumbered in Georgia, tired and full of days?
And what to him whose lyre, Prometheus-like, stole fire From heaven; whom sea and air gave fancies tender-- Whose song, winged like the lark, Died out in death's great dark; Whose soul, like some bright star, clothed on in splendor, Went trembling down the viewless fields of air, Wafted by music and the breath of prayer?
What gav'st thou these? A crust: A coffin for their dust: Neglect, and idle praise and swift forgetting-- Stones when they asked for bread: Green bays when they were dead-- Who sang of thee from dawn till life's sun-setting, And whose tired eyes, thank God! could never see Thy shallow tears, thy niggard charity.
Yet fair as is a night, O strong, O darkly bright!
Thou shinest ever radiant and tender, Drawing all hearts to thee, As from the vassal sea The waves are lifted by the moon's white splendor: So poet strains awake, and fancies gleam Like winds and summer lightning through thy dream.
SUNDOWN LANE