It was he who daily lived before
me the life of exactly such a man as I portrayed in `The
Harvester,' and who constantly used every atom of brain and body
power to help and to encourage all men to do the same."
Marriage, a home of her own, and a daughter for a time filled the
author's hands, but never her whole heart and brain. The book fever
lay dormant a while, and then it became a compelling influence. It
dominated the life she lived, the cabin she designed for their
home, and the books she read. When her daughter was old enough to
go to school, Mrs. Porter's time came. Speaking of this period, she
says: "I could not afford a maid, but I was very strong, vital to
the marrow, and I knew how to manage life to make it meet my needs,
thanks to even the small amount I had seen of my mother. I kept a
cabin of fourteen rooms, and kept it immaculate. I made most of my
daughter's clothes, I kept a conservatory in which there bloomed
from three to six hundred bulbs every winter, tended a house of
canaries and linnets, and cooked and washed dishes besides three
times a day. In my spare time (mark the word, there was time to
spare else the books never would have been written and the pictures
made) I mastered photography to such a degree that the
manufacturers of one of our finest brands of print paper once sent
the manager of their factory to me to learn how I handled it. He
frankly said that they could obtain no such results with it as I
did. He wanted to see my darkroom, examine my paraphernalia, and
have me tell him exactly how I worked.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31