SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHORS AND THE STORIES
Dorothy Canfield (Dorothea Frances Canfield Fisher), the author of _Home Fires in France_ from which “A Little Kansas Leaven” was taken, is one of the most convincing and brilliant writers of the times. She always writes with a purpose, but as all of her work is characterized by originality, clearness, and the vital quality of human sympathy, there is not a dull line in any of her fiction or her educational writings.
_Home Fires in France_ is a truthful record of Mrs. Fisher’s impressions of life in tragic, devastated France during the Great War. During much of this period the author was working for the relief of those made blind by war. The tremendous appeal to America made by this book testifies to the sincerity and the genius of the author.
Dorothy Canfield was born in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1879. She obtained degrees from Ohio State University and from Columbia and studied and traveled abroad extensively, becoming an accomplished linguist. She is the author, under the name of Dorothy Canfield, of some of the most brilliant fiction of the day, _The Squirrel-Cage_, _The Bent Twig_, and other novels, and under her married name, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, of some valuable educational works, _The Montessori Mother_, _Mothers and Children_, and other books of progressive ideas in education. Mrs. Fisher is now in France (1918) carrying on her work of mercy for the French soldiers and their families.
Elsie Singmaster (Mrs. Harold Lewars) lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and has written most entertaining stories of that historic region and also of the life of the descendants of the Dutch settlers of Pennsylvania. Among her many stories are _When Sarah Saved the Day_, _The Christmas Angel_, _The Flag of Eliphalet_, and _Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath_. This author is a frequent contributor to magazines. In _The Survivors_ we watch the conflict in the breast of stubborn old Adam Foust and rejoice with tears in our eyes when in the time of his friend’s need, love conquers, and Adam and Henry march arm-in-arm down the village street. The story is told with the realism and beauty that characterize all of this author’s work, much of which describes the everyday happenings of commonplace people with absolute fidelity.