Wisconsin in Story and Song. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ purpose has been to furnish some definite knowledge concerning literary productions of Wisconsin people. They have been surprised, and they feel that their readers will be surprised, to find how many authors of national repute have been intimately associated with Wisconsin life; and further, to find that many writers who have not as yet gained fame outside the state have written things that are beyond doubt highly creditable.

      The second purpose has been to kindle the surprise just mentioned into wholesome effort, particularly among our young people, to appreciate what literature is and how it is produced, and to encourage these readers to study the life round about them with a view to expressing their observations in literary language. In other words, they hope that this book may stimulate Wisconsin authors to still greater literary activity.

      The difficulties in the preparation of such a compilation as this may be readily imagined. First, there is the problem of selection or rejection on account of geographical eligibility. The editors have not drawn the line at nativity or at present residence, but have rather defined it thus: Anyone who, in his mature life, has become identified with Wisconsin, both through residence and through literary, educational, or other activity, is geographically eligible.

      Literary eligibility is still more difficult to determine. In general, the editors have been guided in their decisions by the judgment of the reading public, which is, after all, in many ways one of the best critics. There is, however, the problem of early writers who had considerable vogue in their day; and likewise that of young authors whose works are just now beginning to appear. They can scarcely hope to have done exact justice in either one of these two fields. New writers of promise are arising. Perhaps some that have held the center of the stage will soon have to give place. Literary estimates are inherently a changing quantity. Absolutely just criticism of today will be warped judgment tomorrow.

      Further, it is possible that there may be serious oversight in this collection. For any such error the editors wish beforehand to make due apology. It has not been their intention to discriminate against any person or group or section. They will be placed under obligation by any persons who will, upon reading the selections here noted, write them with respect to other authors whose works, they feel, should have been represented.

      While this book, it is hoped, will have a general interest for all Wisconsin readers, it is believed that it may prove of particular use as supplementary reading in the seventh and eighth grades and the early years of the high school. To the end that the selections may prove available for this use, brief biographical and critical explanations have been given with nearly every selection.

      The editors acknowledge with gratitude the ready co-operation of both authors and publishers in permitting the use of copyrighted material, specific credit being given in each case in the proper connection. Particular mention should also be made of the "Bibliography of Wisconsin Authors," prepared in 1893 for the Wisconsin Historical Society by Emma A. Hawley, under direction of Reuben Gold Thwaites; and of "The So-called School of Wisconsin Authors," Miss Zona Gale's thesis, under the same date.

      C. R. R.

       H. S. H.

GENERAL WRITERS.

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HAMLIN GARLAND.

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      Hamlin Garland was born in the beautiful La Crosse valley, September 16, 1860, and lived there until he was eight years old. Twenty-three years ago he purchased the old homestead near West Salem, La Crosse County, and to this he delights to return each year for part of his summer. As one reads his description of the trip to West Salem over the Northwestern Line in his story, "Up the Cooley," he is compelled to see how much Mr. Garland loves the scenes of Wisconsin.

      Among the other states which may share in the right to claim Hamlin Garland are Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, and South Dakota. In Iowa he learned what the rural school, the academy, and the farm could teach him. It was in the Boston Public Library that he formed much of his literary style and determined that the material for his future literary work should be the western life that he knew so well. In Illinois he began his work as a teacher and a lecturer. Here he met the girl who was to become his wife, Miss Zulima Taft, sister of the artist, Lorado Taft. Chicago is his present home. Mr. Garland visited his parents in South Dakota in 1883 and took up a claim there. Here he got material which he incorporated into some of his stories, among which the Moccassin Ranch is the most notable.

      The experience in these several states gave Hamlin Garland an excellent opportunity to understand all phases of country life. He has expressed his observations in description of boys' games, the labor on the farm, the work of the rural school, and the varied activities of the rural community. He knew that the work of the farm in an early day furnished as much opportunity for the display of resistance and the determination to use the last bit of strength to win as does the game of the present. The work of binding the wheat after a reaper became a game requiring honesty as well as skill and rapidity. Perhaps no boy of today shoots a basket, makes a touch-down, or hits out a home run with more pride than did the youth of this pioneer life retire from the harvest field at noon or night with the consciousness that he had bound all his "tricks" without being caught once by the machine as it made its successive rounds of the field.

      Hamlin Garland knew the joys of these contests on the pioneer farm, and he also knew the sordid side of the narrow and cramped life of the early settler. He describes both with equal vividness and sympathy. Wisconsin owes him much for the work he has done in preserving pictures of her early pioneer life. His hero and heroine are those ancestors who travelled forth into the new regions in covered wagons, and by the use of axe and plow conquered a seemingly unconquerable forest or a stubborn prairie sod. In his book of short stories, "Main Travelled Roads," he makes the dedication of it to his heroic parents in these words:

      "To my father and mother, whose half-century pilgrimage on the main travelled road of life has brought them only toil and deprivation, this book of stories is dedicated by a son to whom every day brings a deepening sense of his parents' silent heroism."

      To illustrate Mr. Garland's ability to picture the joyous and the irksome in the life of the pioneer two selections are given at this place. The first sets forth the joy of farm activity, the second, the disheartening influence of abject toil.

      

HAMLIN GARLAND

HAYING TIME

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      From "BOY LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE." Published by permission of Harper Bros.

      Haying was the one season of farm work which the boys thoroughly enjoyed. It usually began on the tame meadows about the twenty-fifth of June, and lasted a week or so. It had always appealed to Lincoln,[1] in a distinctly beautiful and poetic sense, which was not true of the main business of farming. Most of the duties through which he passed needed the lapse of years to seem beautiful in his eyes, but haying had a charm and significance quite out of the common.

      At this time the summer was at its most exuberant stage of vitality, and it was not strange that even the faculties of toiling old men, dulled and deadened with never ending drudgery, caught something of exultation from СКАЧАТЬ