Mrs. Mary Jane Holmes, a family favorite for fifty years, was born at Brookfield, Massachusetts, April 5, 1828. She became a teacher at an early age, and at Allen's Hill, New York, on August 9, 1849, she was married to Daniel Holmes, a Yale man of the class of 1848, who had been teaching the year between his graduation and marriage at Versailles, Kentucky. Immediately after the ceremony he and his bride started to Kentucky, where Mrs. Holmes joined her husband in teaching. In 1850 they gave up the school at Versailles, taking charge of the district school at Glen's Creek, near Versailles. Here they taught for two years, when Mr. Holmes decided to relinquish teaching for the practice of law, and they removed to Brockport, New York, their home henceforth. Mrs. Holmes returned to Kentucky in 1857, for a visit, and this, with the three years indicated above, included her Kentucky life. Having settled at Brockport, she began her career as a novelist. Her first and best known book, Tempest and Sunshine, or Life in Kentucky, was published in 1854. Mr. Middleton, one of the chief characters in this novel, was a rather close characterization of a Kentucky planter, Mr. Singleton, who resided some miles from Versailles; and his daughter, Sue Singleton, subsequently Mrs. Porter, always claimed, though facetiously, that she was the original of Tempest. It is now known, however, that Mrs. Holmes had not thought of her in delineating the character, and that the Singleton home is the only thing in the book that is drawn from actual life with any detail whatever. In her Kentucky books that followed Tempest and Sunshine, she usually built an accurate background for characters that lived only in her imagination. Besides Tempest and Sunshine, Mrs. Holmes was the author of thirty-four books, published in the order given: The English Orphans; Homestead on the Hillside, a book of Kentucky stories; Lena Rivers, a Kentucky novel, superior to Tempest and Sunshine; Meadow Brook; Dora Deane; Cousin Maude; Marian Grey, a Kentucky story; Darkness and Daylight; Hugh Worthington, another Kentucky novel; The Cameron Pride; Rose Mather; Ethelyn's Mistake; Millbank; Edna Browning; West Lawn; Edith Lyle; Mildred; Daisy Thornton; Forrest House; Chateau D'Or; Madeline; Queenie Hetherton; Christmas Stories; Bessie's Fortune; Gretchen; Marguerite; Dr. Hathern's Daughters; Mrs. Hallam's Companion; Paul Ralston; The Tracy Diamonds; The Cromptons; The Merivale Banks; Rena's Experiment; and The Abandoned Farm. About two million copies of Mrs. Holmes's books have been sold by her authorized publishers; how many have been sold in pirated editions cannot, of course, be ascertained. Mrs. Holmes died at Brockport, New York, October 6, 1907.

Bibliography. Allibone's Dictionary of Authors (Philadelphia, 1897, v. ii); The Nation (October 10, 1907).

THE SCHOOLMASTER

[From Lena Rivers (New York, 1856)]

And now Mr. Everett was daily expected. Anna, who had no fondness for books, greatly dreaded his arrival, thinking within herself how many pranks she'd play off upon him, provided 'Lena would lend a helping hand, which she much doubted. John Jr., too, who for a time, at least, was to be placed under Mr. Everett's instruction, felt in no wise eager for his arrival, fearing, as he told 'Lena that "between the 'old man' and the tutor, he would be kept a little too straight for a gentleman of his habits;" and it was with no particular emotions of pleasure that he and Anna saw the stage stop before the gate one pleasant morning toward the middle of November. Running to one of the front windows, Carrie, 'Lena, and Anna watched their new teacher, each after her own fashion commenting upon his appearance.

"Ugh," exclaimed Anna, "what a green, boyish looking thing! I reckon nobody's going to be afraid of him."

"I say he's real handsome," said Carrie, who being thirteen years of age, had already, in her own mind, practiced many a little coquetry upon the stranger.

"I like him," was 'Lena's brief remark.

Mr. Everett was a pale, intellectual looking man, scarcely twenty years of age, and appearing still younger so that Anna was not wholly wrong when she called him boyish. Still there was in his large black eye a firmness and decision which bespoke the man strong within him, and which put to flight all of Anna's preconceived notions of rebellion. With the utmost composure he returned Mrs. Livingstone's greeting, and the proud lady half bit her lip with vexation as she saw how little he seemed awed by her presence.

Malcolm Everett was not one to acknowledge superiority where there was none, and though ever polite toward Mrs. Livingstone, there was something in his manner which forbade her treating him as aught save an equal. He was not to be trampled down, and for once in her life Mrs. Livingstone had found a person who would neither cringe to her nor flatter. The children were not presented to him until dinner time, when, with the air of a young desperado, John Jr. marched into the dining-room, eyeing his teacher askance, calculating his strength, and returning his greeting with a simple nod. Mr. Everett scanned him from head to foot, and then turned to Carrie half smiling at the great dignity which she assumed. With Lena and Anna he seemed better pleased, holding their hands and smiling down upon them through rows of teeth which Anna pronounced the whitest she had ever seen.

Mr. Livingstone was not at home, and when his mother appeared, Mrs. Livingstone did not think proper to introduce her. But if by this omission she thought to keep the old lady silent, she was mistaken, for the moment Mrs. Nichols was seated, she commenced with, "Your name is Everett, I b'lieve?"

"Yes, ma'am," said he, bowing very gracefully toward her.

"Any kin to the governor what was?"

"No, ma'am, none whatever," and the white teeth became slightly visible for a moment, but soon disappeared.

"You are from Rockford, 'Lena tells me?"

"Yes, ma'am. Have you friends there?"

"Yes—or that is, Nancy Scovandyke's sister, Betsy Scovandyke that used to be, lives there. Maybe you know her. Her name is Bacon—Betsy Bacon. She's a widder and keeps boarders."

"Ah," said he, the teeth this time becoming wholly visible, "I've heard of Mrs. Bacon, but have not the honor of her acquaintance. You are from the east, I perceive."

"Law, now! how did you know that?" asked Mrs. Nichols, while Mr. Everett answered, "I guessed at it," with a peculiar emphasis on the word guessed, which led 'Lena to think he had used it purposely and not from habit.

Mr. Everett possessed in a remarkable degree the faculty of making those around him both respect and like him, and ere six weeks had passed, he had won the love of all his pupils. Even John Jr. was greatly improved, and Carrie seemed suddenly reawakened into a thirst for knowledge, deeming no task too long, and no amount of study too hard, if it won the commendation of the teacher. 'Lena, who committed to memory with great ease, and who consequently did not deserve so much credit for her always perfect lessons, seldom received a word of praise, while poor Anna, notoriously lazy when books were concerned, cried almost every day, because as she said, "Mr. Everett didn't like her as he did the rest, else why did he look at her so much, watching her all the while, and keeping her after school to get her lessons over, when he knew how she hated them."

Once Mrs. Livingstone ventured to remonstrate, telling him that Anna was very sensitive, and required altogether different treatment from Carrie. "She thinks you dislike her," said she, "and while she retains this impression, she will do nothing as far as learning is concerned; so if you do not like her, try and make her think you do!"

There was a peculiar look in Mr. Everett's dark eyes as he answered, "You may think it strange, Mrs. Livingstone, but of all my pupils I love Anna the best! I know I find more fault with her, and am, perhaps, more severe with her than with the rest, but it's because I would make her what I wish her to be. Pardon me, madam, but Anna does not possess the same amount of intellect with her cousin or sister, but by proper culture she will make a fine, intelligent woman."

Mrs. Livingstone hardly relished being told that one child was inferior to the other, but she could not well help herself—Mr. Everett would say what he pleased—and thus the conference ended. From that time Mr. Everett was exceedingly kind to Anna, wiping away the tears which invariably came when told that she must stay with him in the schoolroom after the rest were gone; then, instead of seating himself in rigid silence at a distance until her task was learned, he would sit by her side, occasionally smoothing her long curls and speaking encouragingly to her as she poured over some hard rule of grammar, or puzzled her brains with some difficult problem in Colburn. Ere long the result of all this became manifest. Anna grew fonder of her books, more ready to learn, and—more willing to be kept after school!

Ah, little did Mrs. Livingstone think what she was doing when she bade young Malcolm Everett make her warm-hearted, impulsive daughter think he liked her!