Memories and Anecdotes by Kate Sanborn
page 39 of 188 (20%)
page 39 of 188 (20%)
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name--'Hezekiah Butterworth.'"
"But that is his own name," said the editor. "Indeed; I am afraid I shall hate that Hezzy." "Well, just try it; come with me to his work-room." When we had gone up one flight, Mr. Ford opened a door, where a gentle, sweet-faced young man of slender build was sitting at a table, the floor all around him literally strewn with at least three hundred manuscripts, each one to be examined as a possible winner in a contest for a five-hundred-dollar prize story. Both English and American authors had competed. He was, as De Quincey put it, "snowed up." Then my friend said with a laugh, "Miss Sanborn has come to see Hezzy whom she fancies she shall hate." A painfully awkward introduction, but Mr. Butterworth laughed heartily, and made me very welcome, and from that time was ever one of my most faithful friends, honouring my large Thanksgiving parties by his presence for many years. I shall tell but two stories about my father in his classroom. He had given Pope's _Rape of the Lock_ as subject for an essay to a young man who had not the advantage of being born educated, but did his best at all times. As the young man read on in class, father, who in later years was a little deaf, stopped him saying, "Sir, did I understand you to say Sniff?" "No, sir, I did not, I said Slyph." In my father's Latin classes there were many absurd mistakes, as when he asked a student, "What was ambrosia?" and the reply was, "The gods' hair oil," an answer evidently suggested by the constant advertisement |
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