Mrs. Porter says that her first all-alone effort was printed in
wabbly letters on the fly-leaf of an old grammar. It was
entitled: "Ode to the Moon." "Not," she comments, "that I had an
idea what an `ode' was, other than that I had heard it discussed
in the family together with different forms of poetic expression.
The spelling must have been by proxy: but I did know the words I
used, what they meant, and the idea I was trying to convey.
"No other farm was ever quite so lovely as the one on which I was
born after this father and mother had spent twenty-five years
beautifying it," says the author. It was called "Hopewell" after
the home of some of her father's British ancestors. The natural
location was perfect, the land rolling and hilly, with several
flowing springs and little streams crossing it in three
directions, while plenty of forest still remained. The days of
pioneer struggles were past. The roads were smooth and level as
floors, the house and barn commodious; the family rode abroad in
a double carriage trimmed in patent leather, drawn by a matched
team of gray horses, and sometimes the father "speeded a little"
for the delight of the children. "We had comfortable clothing,"
says Mrs. Porter, "and were getting our joy from life without
that pinch of anxiety which must have existed in the beginning,
although I know that father and mother always held steady, and
took a large measure of joy from life in passing.
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