Part 3

Ellen Palmer Allerton, the sweet and gentle poetess, beloved of Kansas, lived at Padonia, in Brown County, when she wrote her famous poem, "Wall of Corn."

She was past her prime when she came to Kansas from the Wisconsin home, the subject of many of her noble gems. As she grew older, she grew stronger in poetic strength.

Three volumes of poems have been published, "Walls of Corn and Other Poems," "Annabel and Other Poems," and "Poems of the Prairie." Her "Walls of Corn," written in 1884, famous from the first, as used as railroad immigration advertising, was translated in several languages and distributed all over Europe. This and her "Trail of Forty-nine" are her best, although the classic beauty of "Beautiful Things" is unsurpassed by any other American writer.

"Beautiful twilight, at set of sun, Beautiful goal, with race well run, Beautiful rest, with work well done."

is a fitting close to the beautiful, useful life of the author.

Mrs. Allerton was born in Centerville. New York, in 1835 and began writing verse at the age of seventeen. Much as she has written, yet writing was only a pastime. She never let it interfere with her housework. Thoroughly practical, she did all her own work, just because she loved to do it. Her flowers of which she had many, in doors and out, resulted in many noble, inspiring lines. In 1862, she was

married to A. B. Allerton of Wisconsin, coming to Kansas in 1865. She was best appreciated for her social qualities and her interest in charity--that broader charity that praises the beauty and ignores the blemishes. Her last poem, "When Days Grow Dark" is a beautiful pen picture of her sweetness and resignation in her growing blindness and her love and trust in him who had been her companion down the years.

"You take the book and pour into my ear In accent sweet, the words I cannot see; I listen charmed, forget my haunting fear, And think with you as with your eyes I see. In the world's thought, so your dear voice be left, I still have part, I am not all bereft.

And if this darkness deepens, when for me The new moon bends no more her silver rim, When stars go out, and over land and sea Black midnight falls, where now is twilight dim, O, then may I be patient, sweet and mild, While your hands lead me like a little child!"

She died in 1893, at Padonia, and was buried in a bed of her favorite white flowers, donated by loving friends. In the little graveyard at Hamlin, one reads "Beautiful Things" on a modest stone at the head of her little bed.

EMMA TANNER WOOD.

Mrs. Emma Tanner Wood (Caroline Cunningham), a Topeka woman, began newspaper work in 1872. The result of those early years' work was "Spring Showers," a volume of prose. After thirty years of study and experience among the defectives, she wrote "Too Fit For The Unfit," advocating surgery for the feeble-minded. The story of Mrs. Benton, one of the characters, led Mrs. Wood to introduce a law preventing children being sent to the poor house. This was the first law purely in the interest of children ever passed in Kansas. Later, a law preventing traveling hypnotists from using school children as subjects in public exhibitions was drawn up by Mrs. Wood and passed.

Several years ago, a book on hypnotism, far in advance of the public thought, was written and is to be published this year.

Mrs. Wood is seventy years young and as she says: "finds age the very sweetest part of life. It is no small satisfaction to laugh at the follies of others and know that you are past committing them. It is equally delightful to be responsible only to one's self and order one's life as one chooses. Every day is a holy day to me now and the sweetness of common things, grass, flowers, neighborly love, grand-children, and home comforts fill me with satisfaction. To think kindly of all things under the sun (but sin); to speak kindly to all; to do little kindly acts is a greater good to the world at large than we think while we are in the heat of battle."

CORNELIA M. STOCKTON.

A cheerful little room in the East wing of St. Margaret's Hospital, Kansas City, Kansas; an invalid chair wheeled up to a window over looking the street; and the eager, expectant face and the warm hand clasp of the occupant, Mrs. Cornelia M. Stockton, assures the visitor of a hearty welcome.

Greatly enfeebled by long illness and with impaired sight, this bright, little woman's keen interest in current events and the latest "best seller" puts to shame the half-hearted zeal of the average woman.

For four years, Mrs. Stockton has lived at St. Margaret's, depending upon the visits of friends and the memory of an eventful life to pass the days. Prominence in club work in her earlier years has brought reward. The History Club of Kansas City, Kansas, of which she was once a member, each week sends a member to read to her and these are red letter days to this brave, patient, little woman.

Mrs. Stockton began writing very young. When a little girl, back in the village of Walden, New York, she stole up to the pulpit of the church and wrote in her pastor's Bible:

"I have not seen the minister's eyes, And cannot describe his glance divine, For when he prays he shuts them up And when he preaches he shuts mine."

She was born in 1833 in Shawangunk, New York, and came to Kansas City in 1859, living in Missouri some years but most of the time in Kansas City, Kansas.

In 1892, she published a limited edition of poems, "The Shanar Dancing Girl and Other Poems." dedicated to Mrs. Bertha M. Honore Palmer, her ideal of the perfect type of gracious and lovely womanhood. "The Shanar Dancing Girl" was first written for the Friends in Council, a literary club of Kansas City, Mo. It has received the encomiums of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, John J. Ingalls and others for its beauty of expression and dramatic qualities. "Invocation," an April idyl; "The Sea-shell;" and "Mountain Born" sing of the love of nature. "In the Conservatory;" "My Summer Heart;" and "Tired of the Storm" hint of sorrow and unrest and longing. Then in 1886, "Compensation" was written. "Irma's Love For The King" is a favorite; also, "'Sold'--A Picture," written for her daughter, "yes, but she never came.

"The Sorrowful Stone" Mrs. Stockton considers her best.

"The story without a suspicion of rhyme, And dim with the mists of the morning of Time, Is told of a goddess, who, wandering alone, Did go and sit down on the Sorrowful Stone.

We find our Gethsemane somewhere, though late; The Angel of Shadows throws open the gate. We creep with our burden of pain, to atone, For all of life's ills, to the Sorrowful Stone.

Above is the vault of the pitiless stars; The trees stretch their arms all blackened with scars; The gales of lost Paradise are faintly blown To where we sit down on the Sorrowful Stone."

"From a Poem 'Vagaries'" warns of * * * --the product of the age and clime, We do too much! grow old before our time,

Yet--would we stray to Morning Hills again? Unlearn sad prophecies, and dream as then!