Chapter V: Part 5

Mr. Webster's Speller was a work of less pretensions, perhaps, but it had an immense sale. Eight years ago 40,000,000 of these books had been sold, and yet it had the same grave defect. It was disconnected, cold, prosy and dull. I read it for years, and at last became a very close student of Mr. Webster's style. Still I never found but one thing in the book for which there was such a stampede, which was even ordinarily interesting, and that was a perfect gem. It was so thrilling in detail and so different from Mr. Webster's general style that I have often wondered who he got to write it for him. Perhaps it was the author of the _Bread Winners_. It related to the discovery of a boy in the crotch of an old apple tree by an elderly gentleman, and the feeling of bitterness and animosity that sprang up between the two, and how the old man told the boy at first that he had better come down out of that tree, because he was afraid the limb would break with him and let him fall. Then, as the boy still remained, he told him that those were not eating-apples, that they were just common cooking-apples, and that there were worms in them. But the boy said he didn't mind a little thing like that. So then the old gentleman got irritated and called the dog and threw turf at the boy, and at last saluted him with pieces of turf and decayed cabbages; and after he had gone away the old man pried the bulldog's jaws open and found a mouthful of pantaloons and a freckle. I do not tell this, of course, in Mr. Webster's language but I give the main points as they recur now to my mind.

Though I have been a close student of Mr. Webster for years and examined his style closely, I am free to say that his ideas about writing a book are not the same as mine. Of course it is a great temptation for a young author to write a book that will have a large sale, but that should not be all. We should have a higher object than that, and strive to interest those who read our books. It should not be jerky and scattering in its statements.

I do not wish to do an injustice to a great man who I learn is now no more, a man who has done so much for the world and who could spell the longest word without hesitation, but I speak of these things just as I would expect others to criticise nay work. If one aspire to monkey with the _literati_ of our day we must expect to be criticised. I have been criticised myself. When I was in public life--as a justice of the peace in the Rocky Mountains--a man came in one day and criticised me so that I did not get over it for two weeks.

I might add, though I dislike to speak of it now, that Mr. Webster was at one time a member of the Legislature of Massachusetts. I believe that was the only time he ever stepped aside from the straight and narrow way. A good many people do not know this, but it is true. It only shows how a good man may at one time in his life go wrong.

End of Project Gutenberg's Bill Nye's Sparks, by Edgar Wilson Nye AKA Bill Nye