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n the technique so neatly achieved in "The Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner. The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr. Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter fought with the python. For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's "April Twenty-fifth As Usual," cheerfully proclaiming the inevitableness of spring cleaning, might be published with the sub-title, An Epic of the Housekeeper. They were alert for reflections of life--in America and elsewhere. The politics of "Gum Shoes, 4-B"; the local court of law in "Tom Belcher's Store"; the frozen west of "Turkey Red" seemed to them to meet the demand that art must hold the mirror up to nature. In particular, the Committee hoped to find good stories of the war. Now that fiction containing anything of the Great Struggle is anathema to editors, and must wait for that indefinite time of its revival, it was like getting a last bargain to read "Facing It," "Humoresque," "Contact," "Autumn Crocuses," and "England to America." In these small masterpieces is celebrated either manhood which keeps a rendezvous with death, womanhood which endures, or the courage of men and women which meets bodily misfortune and the anguish of personal loss. Leon Kantor of "Humoresque" and the young Virginian of "England to America" will bring back, to all who read, their own heroes. It is fitting that Miss Montague's story should have received the first prize: poignant, short in words, great in significance, it will stand a minor climactic peak in that chain of literature produced during the actual progress of the World War. * * * * * In the estimation of the Committee the year 1919 was not one of pre-eminent short stories. Why? There are several half-satisfactory explanations. Some of the acknowledged leaders, seasoned authors, have not been publishing their average annual number of tales. Alice Brown, Donn Byrne, Irvin Cobb, Edna Ferber, Katharine Gerould, Fannie Hurst and Mary W. Freeman are represented by sp
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