Amelia E. Barr 1831-1919

Amelia E. Barr 1831-1919Author(s): Rose NormanSource: Legacy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (1999), pp. 193-200Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25679303 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Legacy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.89 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:48:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=unp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25679303?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


LEGACY PROFILE

Amelia E. Barr 1831-1919

Rose Norman

University of Alabama in Huntsville

In

1889, a critic reviewing the twelve nov els Amelia E. Barr had written in the pre

vious five years concluded his essay with the assessment that "Mrs. Amelia E. Ban

may very well rank as the foremost woman

novelist in America" (Adams, O. 268). Ban would publish fifty more novels and novel

las, as well as a steady stream of short sto

ries, poems, and essays, in a writing ca reer that lasted nearly fifty years, yet she never achieved the critical recognition this

early admirer predicted, nor has her work attracted the interest of modern feminist critics. The qualities that led that critic to such high praise of Amelia Barr, however, are qualities that make many of Barr's books still highly readable today?excellent story telling combined with a genuine interest in

history and human nature, especially the

ability to rise above adversity. Her main sig nificance lies in the way she transforms the

popular romance novel, through attention to historical detail, greater depth of charac

terization, and often intelligent attention to serious issues, from abortion to wife-beating.

While she does not directly challenge mores

(her women, e.g., do not seek careers),

she depicts a world in which women and men negotiate sensible and fair ways of

Amelia Barr

Portrait at the Age of Eighteen?Austin, Texas

Archives & Information Services

Division?Texas State Library

working within the boundaries of gender expectations.

For Barr, writing was more a craft than an

art, and she is preeminently a good popular

LEGACY, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1999. Copyright ? 1999 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

193



Legacy

novelist, able to tell a story that entertains and stimulates readers, while at the same time developing the moral and spiritual lessons that were important to her. The credo everywhere evident in her novels is well expressed in a passage she wrote as a Christmas message for Good Housekeeping in 1915: "Daily life teaches us many great lessons. Chief among them are these three: the highest success is to trust God, the great est happiness is to love and be loved, the truest satisfaction is a good day's work well done" (770). She finds many interesting ways to express this message through characters and stories on a wide variety of topics. While all of her novels feature a love interest, she also addresses such serious subjects as the Salem witch hunt (The Black Shilling, 1903),

slavery (She Loved a Sailor, 1890), abortion

(The Measure of a Man, 1915), and wife

beating (Friend Olivia, 1889). Amelia Barr wrote about such a wide va

riety of subjects that it is difficult to choose a "typical" novel or to classify her work. Her abiding passion was the study of history, and many of her novels draw on her histor ical research, including three set in seven teenth and eighteenth-century England, one

set in early Texas (where she had lived as a

young wife), and twelve tracing New York

history from pre-Revolutionary times to the

early twentieth century. Another twenty or so are set in the England and Scotland of her childhood in the 1830s, most of them romances for which she says she did no his torical research, drawing only on memory and stories she was told. Some of the English novels could be classified as industrial nov

els, treating the lives of mill owners and mill workers. The last of these, The Paper Cap (1918), is actually dedicated to Samuel Gom

pers and tells the story of the first British Reform. There is social consciousness in

these industrial novels, Christian fervor in the novels about Cromwell's day (The Lion's

Whelp, 1901) and the British persecution

of Quakers (Friend Olivia), and throughout a close attention to the details of domestic

life, whether in an obscure fishing village in the Shetland Islands, or among New York's

society women.

As with any prolific novelist, there are some character types to which she returns

repeatedly. There is the beautiful, good, in nocent who typically falls in love with some one to whom her family objects, sometimes a man of a higher class, who marries her

leading to their ruin (A Singer from the

Sea, 1893) or leaves her for a woman of his own class (Thyra Varrick, 1903) or outrages and thus loses her by suggesting they run

away without marrying (Feet of Clay, 1889).

Counterpoint to this innocent, we have the beautiful and spirited young woman, often the good friend of the more naive type, who

speaks her mind, may be selfish but not

cruel, and is often humbled in the end. Par

ticipating actively in the story is the middle

aged mother, who usually dotes on her n'er do-well son, but is often shown to be wiser than her good-hearted, but stubborn, hus

band, who dotes on the daughter (who may be either innocent or spirited, but is always beautiful). Finally, there is often a deeply re

ligious man (sometimes woman) who must face adversity with the aid of God, who

encourages his practical and sensible side. These somewhat familiar character types may be English, Scottish, or American (in cluding Mexican American in Remember the

Alamo, 1888, and Dutch American in sev eral New York history novels) and are usually middle class or upper middle class. Barr also creates strong British working-class charac

ters in novels set among sea-going people of the Isle of Man (Feet of Clay), the Cornish coast (A Singerfrom the Sea), or the Orkney and Shetland Islands of Scotland (Thyra Var rick and Jan Vedder's Wife). Barr obviously admires these fisher-folk, and in fact has such an affinity for the sea that even in the New York history novels she often makes her heroes ship captains or naval officers.

194



Rose Norman

Barr's wide-ranging subject matter re

flects her broad reading and her varied

experiences, reported in novelistic detail in her autobiography All the Days of My Life (1913), which is the chief source of

biographical information about her, and what some consider her best book (Gra ham, "Amelia Barr"; Hamblen). Although she spent her entire writing career in and near New York City, she was brought up in the north of England, where her father, a

Methodist minister, moved the family to a different congregation every two or three

years. Born Amelia Edith Huddleston in Ul

verston, Lancashire, she grew up in Cum

berland, Yorkshire, and the Isle of Man, all

lovingly recreated as the settings of novels. She was studying to be a teacher at a Wes

leyan school in Glasgow when she met and married Robert Barr, a Scottish millowner. Within two years, her husband had suffered business reverses that led them to emigrate to the United States when she was in her

early twenties (1853). Settling first in Chi

cago, then Memphis, they ultimately spent over ten years in Texas (1857-69) .

By 1865, Amelia Barr had six children

(three others had died in infancy) and was

deeply immersed in child-raising and house

keeping. All this was dramatically changed in 1867 when the death of her husband and three sons in a yellow fever epidemic turned

her from a homemaker to a breadwinner.

Working to support herself and her three re

maining daughters would become the dom inant mode of her life. In 1869, they left Texas for New Jersey, where Barr had a job tutoring three young boys, but, encouraged by her employer, she began to write stories and soon moved to New York City to support herself entirely by writing.

Always an avid reader, Barr had "longed to write books" as a teenager (All the Days 59), and had tried writing a novel while they lived in Texas, but gave it up because of the demands of family life (Graham, "Texas

Memoirs" 482). Thus starting a new life as

a professional writer was both a challenge and the fulfillment of a dream. While the Christian Union and other religious papers kept her busy, success was slow in coming. She describes a ten-year writing apprentice ship during which she began spending long hours at New York libraries, industriously researching and writing stories, poems, and

essays. Her first book, Romances and Re alities (1875), collected some of her short fiction and essays, but she earned nothing for it because it came out when the publisher

was failing. Professional success and the beginning of

financial security came with her third novel, Jan Vedder s Wife (1885), which illustrates

many of her typical themes and characters. Set in the isolated Shetland Islands off the

west coast of Scotland, the novel tells the

story of how Jan Vedder and Margaret Fae

marry, separate, and eventually come back

together and have a long, happy marriage. Typically for Barr, their marital trials are told with perceptiveness about both the hus band's and the wife's perspectives. The cen tral conflict is over the difference in their attitude toward money. Jan Vedder is a light hearted, popular fisherman without family or riches, while Margaret Fae is the only child of Peter Fae, a prosperous storeowner in

the little town of Lerwick. They marry over her father's objections, and Peter retaliates

by withholding her dowry, though he gives them a house to live in. This soon leads to trouble as Margaret hoards, while Jan is a

spendthrift, a conflict worsened as Jan has a series of financial setbacks, until Margaret

moves back to her father's house. Margaret's life takes a turn for the worse when her

recently widowed father remarries a woman

Margaret's age, chastening her proud spirit by subordinating her place in the household. The low point comes when Jan gets into a

fight and disappears for many years, leading to local gossip and Margaret and Peter Fae's

mutual suspicion of each other. At this point, Barr alternates two plots, what happens to

195



Legacy

Margaret and Peter in Lerwick, and what

happens to Jan Vedder himself. Both of these

plot lines are considerably more romanti cized and unbelievable than the domestic

story that led up to them. But plot summary does not do this novel

justice. Barr is remarkable in bringing to

life characters that might readily resolve to

stereotype in the hands of a lesser writer. Peter Fae and his young second wife, for

example, are fully realized characters, and

Jan's friendship with another man, Michael

Snorro, is developed in an interesting, some

what homoerotic, way. Like many of Barr's

novels, the book shows a character dramati

cally transformed by adversity (Margaret Fae) and highlights the virtues of self-sacrificing men (Snorro and a minister in this case).

She followed Jan Vedder's Wife with The Bow of Orange Ribbon (1886), the first of her New York history novels, and both nov

els were still in print thirty years later. Barr's

popular appeal lies in what one contempo rary reviewer described as "a hearty zest

for sound and simple people; people who do not sophisticate, who have passions and are not ashamed of them; who love frankly and unreservedly; who believe in themselves and their fellows and God" (Mabie 324).

By and large, however, her fiction lacks in tellectual depth, though the historical nov els show a keen understanding of intellec tual debates and a capacity to report these

with fidelity to historical fact.1 Her novels are far better than her short stories, which are rather shallow, lacking the artistry we

associate with Rose Terry Cooke or Sarah Orne Jewett. The novels are crowded with

incident, but are neither as sensational as

E.D.E.N. Southworth's, nor as sentimental

as those of Augusta Jane Evans Wilson or

Susan Warner. Indeed the one modern crit

ical article on Barr seems to entirely miss

the mark in treating Barr as a sentimentalist

(Bogard). Rather, her work is informed by a

very deep Christianity that expresses itself in characters transformed through Christian

faith. She rarely lingers over descriptions of

sorrowing mothers or orphans, although she

regularly sets up scenes of social injustice or lovers parted. Religious belief was ex

tremely important to Barr, but she was an

independent thinker who enjoyed intellec tual debate with ministers, and her Christian faith was not tied to the doctrine of any

particular church. It was compatible with a

belief in reincarnation that she came to late in life, as well as supernatural experiences such as premonitory dreams. Interestingly, she reports many supernatural experiences in her autobiography, as well as in a second

memoir about old age, but her novels do not

emphasize these kinds of experiences. Neither typically American nor typically

British, her novels are typically Amelia Barr,

recognizable for the way she develops her romantic plots in British or American set

tings. It is the work of a woman who might spend ten hours a day writing for weeks on

end. Like Southworth, she wrote for a living,

produced an amazing number of books, and

assiduously sought ways to sell her work for the highest price. She soon learned that the best price was in serial publication, selling her novel Friend Olivia to Century Maga zine for $3,000 in 1888, more than triple the price her publisher had been paying for

novels, and later signing a contract for four

novels at $2,500 each to be serialized in Robert Bonner's New York Ledger (1891 92). Her greatest productivity came in the decade 1889-99.2

Writing so fast, and especially writing for serial publication, may account for some of the flaws in the novels published in the ten years after Adams ranked Barr as "the

foremost woman novelist in America." The Flower of Gala Water, serialized in Godey's in 1893, is a very shallow and predictable ro

mance, and Trinity Bells (1899) reads like a

novel intended for adolescents, though Barr does not treat it as such in her autobiography. Although she wrote Michael and Theodora for the children's magazine St. Nicholas in

196



Rose Norman

1892, she turned down an offer from Youth's

Companion because she didn't think they

paid enough and because of various restric

tions she found too limiting.3 She restricts

herself by insisting on a happy ending for

all her novels, which leads to some unlikely

plot twists. In Friend Olivia, for example, when pirates capture the ship on which

the Quaker Olivia is emigrating to America, the chief pirate is struck by lightning as he

is about to rape Olivia. But it was also in

working on Friend Olivia, her first serial

for publisher Richard Gilder, that Barr found

perhaps her first serious training in how

to write for the popular audience. A series

of letters to Gilder (now at the Alderman

Library of the University of Virginia) show

that she heavily revised Friend Olivia in re

sponse to Gilder's advice, adding chapters and developing the characters with greater force. Revising Friend Olivia, one of her

best and most absorbing novels, gave her a

taste for what it would be like to write for a

more demanding audience, but she seems to

have been compelled by financial necessity and her own obsession with productivity to

write in haste, even well into her eighties. She nearly always had several projects go

ing at a time, especially in the first fifteen

years of her writing career, when she was

turning out at least one story and poem a

week for the New York Ledger. Yet there is an authenticity in her writing that raises

much of it well beyond the general level of

popular novels. In her autobiography, Barr

writes of her sense of knowing and being with her characters while she writes, and

she mentions being unable to write a story about Evangeline because

" I can't feel that

story, so I can't, and won't write it!'" (424).

Probably her major flaw is her unwilling ness to allow an unhappy ending. Barr is

determined that in the world of her nov

els, suffer though her characters may along the way, they will end up happily married. In fact, a sort of signature gesture in many of her novels is a concluding chapter that

jumps ahead to show her young lovers as a

middle-aged married couple with their chil

dren around them. "In a book, marriage may be the end of a story; in reality, it is the

beginning" she writes at the end of Thyra Varrick (336). Perhaps more than anything, her novels stand as object lessons to other

women, not only advice to young courting

couples in matters of the heart, but also to

married couples negotiating domestic rela

tions. In the preface to her autobiography, she urges women to follow her own exam

ple of industry and perseverance, writing, "I

have drunk the cup of [women's] limitations to the dregs, and if my experience can help any sad or doubtful woman to outleap her own shadow, and to stand bravely out in the

sunshine to meet her destiny, whatever it

may be, I shall have done well" (viii). While

Barr cannot be considered a feminist (e.g., she opposed women's suffrage), her work

promotes egalitarian relations between the

sexes, founded on honesty, industry, and

kindness.

She seems to have personally flourished in the independence that came with widow

hood and her success as a writer. In the con

clusion of her autobiography, Barr credits her writing life for her health, well being, and cheerfulness well into old age. When

she died of cerebral apoplexy, she was al

most eighty-nine years old and at work on

yet another novel.

Notes

1. Indeed her correspondence about Friend

Olivia shows that she was quite able to defend

her history against the critique of the Yale profes sor to whom the publishers had sent the manu

script for review See AEB to Mr. Johnson, Dec. 21,

1889, in the Barrett Collection at the Alderman

Library of the University of Virginia. 2. Of the twenty-one novels she published from

1889 to 1899, twelve were serialized. After that, she seems to have given up serial publication?

whether by choice or circumstance is not clear?

and in any case, all of her novels were published in book form soon after serialization.

197



Legacy

3. Barr reports her response to Youth's Com

panion restrictions in her autobiography: "Their

pages were large, and I could not afford to accept their terms, which were burdened also with sev

eral limitations and forbidden topics. It was very

unlikely that I should ever have touched these topics, unless forbidden to do so. That temptation

might have made me wish to show the censors

how innocently, and indeed profitably, they might be touched" (418).

Works Cited (See Selected Primary Works for Works by Barr.)

Adams, Oscar Fay. "The Novels of Mrs. Barr."

Andover Review (Mar. 1889): 248-68.

Adams, Paul. "Amelia Barr in Texas, 1856-1868."

Southwestern Historical Quarterly 59 (1946): 361-73.

"Amelia E. Barr." Good Housekeeping (Dec.

1915): 770.

Bogard, Robert. "Amelia Barr, Augusta Evans Wil

son, and the Sentimental Novel." Marab 2

(1965-66): 13-25 Graham, Philip. "Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr."

Notable American Women. Ed. Edward T

James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1971. 94-96.

-, ed. "Texas Memoirs of Amelia E. Barr/'

Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 69 (1966): 473-98. [prints "Memoirs of Amelia E. Barr" by her daughter Lillie Barr Munroe, 1857 to 18671

Hamblen, Abigail. "Amelia Edith Huddleston

Barr." American Women Writers: From Colo

nial Times to the Present. Ed. Lina Mainiero

and Langdon Lynne Faust. Vol. 1. New York:

Ungar, 1979. 116-18.

Mabie, Hamilton W. "Amelia E. Barr." Book Buyer 8 (1891): 323-24.

Selected Bibliography

Archives American Literary Manuscripts lists Barr's let

ters and manuscripts in thirty-one libraries in

sixteen states. The most important material

from her Texas years is in the Texas State

Archives Library in Austin, Lillie Barr Munro

Collection and Lillie Barr Munro Correspon dence: eleven typescript chapters of an unpub lished novel by Barr, a memoir by her daughter,

Lillie Barr Munro, describing Austin in 1856

67 (published by Graham), two photographs of Barr, and two letters from Lillie Barr Munro re

garding the collection. The largest single collec

tion of Barr's letters is at the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, Barrett Collection

(forty-nine letters and two brief manuscripts).

Inquiries to various New York City and New

York state libraries turned up only a smattering of letters. In her autobiography, Barr quotes from the diaries she kept throughout her life, but these do not appear to have survived.

Selected Primary Works:

Autobiography All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography; The

Red Leaves of a Human Heart. New York: D.

Appleton, 1913. New York: Arno, 1980.

Three Score Years and Ten. New York: D. Apple

ton, 1913.

Selected Primary Works: Novels

Set in Scotland and Scottish Islands:

Jan Vedder's Wife. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1885.

Friend Olivia. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1889.

The Beads ofTasmer. New York: Robert Bonner's

Sons, 1890.

The Flower of Gala Water. New York: Robert

Bonner's Sons, 1894.

Souls of Passage. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901.

Thyra Varrick.A Love Story. New York: J. F. Taylor & Company, 1903.

Set in England: Between Two Loves: A Tale of the West Riding.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1886.

The Squire of Sandal-Side: A Pastoral Romance.

New York: Dodd, Mead, 1886.

Master of His Fate. New York: Dodd, Mead., 1888;

British title, In Spite of Himself: A Tale of the West Riding, London: J. Clarke & Co., 1888.

Feet of Clay. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1889. A Singer from the Sea. New York: Dodd, Mead,

1893.

The Lion's Whelp: A Story of Cromwell's Time. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1901.

The Measure of a Man. New York: D. Appleton,

1915.

198



Rose Norman

The Paper Cap: A Story of Love and Labor. New York: D. Appleton, 1918.

Set in the United States (primarily New York): The Bow of Orange Ribbon: A Romance of New

York. New York, Dodd, Mead, 1886.

Remember the Alamo. New York: Dodd, Mead,

1888; British title, Woven of Love and Glory, London: F. Warne, 1890; rpt. Boston: Gregg,

1979; Electronic Text Center, University of

Virginia Library: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ She Loved a Sailor. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1890.

Girls of a Feather. New York: R. Bonner's Sons,

1893.

Trinity Bells: A Tale of Old New York. New York:

J. F. Taylor, 1899.

The Maid of Maiden Lane: A Sequel to "The Bow

of Orange Ribbon." A Love Story. New York:

Dodd, Mead, 1900.

A Song of a Single Note: A Love Story. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1902.

The Black Shilling: A Tale of Boston Towns. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1903.

The Belle of Bowling Green. New York: Dodd,

Mead, 1904.

Cecelia's Lovers. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905.

A Maid of Old New York: A Romance of Peter

Stuyvesant's Time. New York: Dodd, Mead,

1911.

Selected Collections Romances and Realities: Tales of Truth and

Fancy. New York, J. B. Ford, 1875.

Scottish Sketches. New York: American Tract So

ciety, 1883; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1898; rpt.

Freeport: Books for Libraries P, 1971.

Christopher and Other Stories. New York: Phil

lips & Hunt; Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe,

1888; New York: Dodd, Mead, 1898; rpt. Freeport: Books for Libraries P, 1971.

Mrs. Barr's Short Stories. New York: Robert

Bonner's Sons, 1891.

The Mate of the Easter Bell and Other Stories.

New York: Robert Bonner's Sons, 1893.

Winter Evening Tales. 2 vols. New York: Christian

Herald, 1896.

Stories of Life and Love. New York: Christian

Herald, 1897.

Selected Secondary Works (See also Works Cited) Bacon, Edgar Mayhew. "Amelia E. Barr in Corn

wall-on-the-Hudson, New York." In Women Au

thors of Our Day in Their Homes; Personal De

scriptions and Interviews. Ed. Francis Whiting

Halsey. New York: J. Pott, 1898; 1903. 111-20.

Harkins, E[dward]. Ffrancis]. Famous Authors

(Women). Boston: L. C. Page, 1901. 125-40.

Hawthorne, Hildegarde. "Amelia E. Barr?Some

Reminiscences." Bookman 51 (1920): 283-86.

"An Industrious Life." Nation 97 (1913): 144-45.

"Mrs. Amelia Barr, the Novelist." Review of Re

views (May 1919): 548-49. Norman, Rose. "Amelia E. Barr." American

Women Prose Writers 1870-1920. Ed. Sharon

M. Harris, et. al. New York: Gale, forthcoming.

Obituary. The New York Times 12 March 1919: 11.

Sweetser, Kate Dickinson. "Amelia Barr and the

Novice." Bookman 58 (1923): 172-78.

"Writing Fiction Not Profitable, Says Amelia Barr."

New York Times 21 July 1912: sec. 5: 5.

199



Legacy

Excerpt from Jan Vedder's Wife, Chapter III, pp. 36-39

The gravitation of character is naturally toward

its weakest point. Margaret's weakest point was

an intense, though unconscious, selfishness. Jan's

restless craving for change and excitement made

him dissatisfied with the daily routine of life, lazy, and often unreasonable. His very blessings became offenses to him. His clean, well-ordered

house, made him fly to the noisy freedom of

Ragon Torr's kitchen. Margaret's never-ceasing

industry, her calmness, neatness and deliberation,

exasperated him as a red cloth does a bull.

Suneva Torr had married Paul Glumm, and

Jan often watched her as he sat drinking his

ale in Torr's kitchen. At home, it is true, she

tormented Glumm with her contrary, provoking

moods; but then, again, she met him with smiles

and endearments that atoned for every thing. Jan

thought it would be a great relief if Margaret were

only angry sometimes. For he wearied of her

constant serenity, as people weary of sunshine

without cloud or shadow.

And Margaret suffered. No one could doubt

that who watched her face from day to day. She

made no complaint, not even to her mother.

Thora, however, perceived it all. She had foreseen

and foretold the trouble, but she was too noble

a woman to point out the fulfillment of her

prophecy. As she went about her daily work, she

considered, and not unkindly, the best means for

bringing Jan back to his wife and home, and his

first pride in them.

She believed that the sea only could do it. After all, her heart was with the men who loved it. She

felt that Jan was as much out of place counting

eggs, as a red stag would be if harnessed to a plow.

She, at least, understood the rebellious, unhappy look on his handsome face. When the ling fishing

was near at hand, she said to Peter: "There is one

thing that is thy duty, and that is to give Jan the

charge of a boat. He is for the sea, and it is not well

that so good a sailor should go out of the family." "I have no mind to do that. Jan will do well

one day, and he will do as ill as can be the next. I

will not trust a boat with him."

"It seems to me that where thou could trust

Margaret, thou might well trust nineteen feet of

keel, and fifty fathom of long line."

Peter answered her not, and Thora kept si

lence also. But at the end, when he had smoked

his pipe, and was lifting the Bible for the evening exercise, he said: "Thou shalt have thy way, wife:

Jan shall have a boat, but thou wilt see evil will

come of it."

"Thou wert always good, Peter, and in this

thing I am thinking of more than fish. There is

sorrow in Margaret's house. A mother can feel

that."

"Now, then, meddle thou not in the matter.

Every man loves in his own way. Whatever there

is between Jan and Margaret is a thing by itself.

But I will speak about the boat in the morning."

el

200



Documents

Amelia E. Barr 1831-1919