And until I could earn enough to hire capable people to
take my place, I held rigidly to that rule. I who waded morass,
fought quicksands, crept, worked from ladders high in air, and
crossed water on improvised rafts without a tremor, slipped with
many misgivings into the postoffice and rented a box for myself, so
that if I met with failure my husband and the men in the bank need
not know what I had attempted. That was early May; all summer I
waited. I had heard that it required a long time for an editor to
read and to pass on matter sent him; but my waiting did seem out of
all reason. I was too busy keeping my cabin and doing field work to
repine; but I decided in my own mind that Mr. Maxwell was a `mean
old thing' to throw away my story and keep the return postage.
Besides, I was deeply chagrined, for I had thought quite well of my
effort myself, and this seemed to prove that I did not know even
the first principles of what would be considered an interesting story.
"Then one day in September I went into our store on an errand and
the manager said to me: `I read your story in the ~Metropolitan
last night. It was great! Did you ever write any fiction before?'
"My head whirled, but I had learned to keep my own counsels, so I
said as lightly as I could, while my heart beat until I feared he
could hear it: `No. Just a simple little thing! Have you any spare
copies? My sister might want one.'
"He supplied me, so I hurried home, and shutting myself in the
library, I sat down to look my first attempt at fiction in the
face.
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