When a little girl of eleven summers I aspired to the writing of a "yellow backed novel," after the pattern of Beadle's dime books, and as a matter of course planned my book from what I had read in other like fiction of the same color. But already tired of reading of perfection I never saw, or heard tell of except in story, my heroes and heroines were to be only common, every-day people, with common names and features. The plan, as near as I can remember, was as follows:
A squatter's cabin hid away in a lonely forest in the wild west. The squatter is a sort of out-law, with two daughters, Mary and Jane, good, sensible girls, and each has a lover; not handsome, but brave and true, who with the help of the good dog "Danger," often rescues them from death by preying wolves, bears, panthers, and prowling Indians.
The concluding chapter was to be, "The reclaiming of the father from his wicked ways. A double wedding, and together they all abandon the old home, and the old life, and float down a beautiful river to a better life in a new home."
Armed with slate and pencil, and hid away in the summer-house, or locked in the library, I would write away until I came to a crack mid-way down the slate, and there I would always pause to read what I had written, and think what to say next. But I would soon be called to my neglected school books, and then would hastily rub out what I had written, lest others would learn of my secret project; yet the story would be re-written as soon as I could again steal away. But the crack in my slate was a bridge I never crossed with my book.
Ah! what is the work that has not its bridges of difficulties to cross? and how often we stop there and turning back, rub out all we have done?
"Rome was not built in a day," yet I, a child, thought to write a book in a day, when no one was looking. I have since learned that it takes lesson and lessons, read and re-read, and many too that are not learned from books, and then the book will be--only a little pamphlet after all.
Going and Settling of the Nebraska Mutual Aid Colony of Bradford, Pa., in Northern Nebraska--A Description of the Country in which they located, which embraces the Elkhorn, Niobrara and Keya Paha Valleys--Their First Summer's Work and Harvest.