n,
by way of compromise, a piece of nature work spiced with enough fiction
to tempt her class of readers. In this way she hoped that they would
absorb enough of the nature work while reading the fiction to send them
afield, and at the same time keep in their minds her picture of what
she considers the only life worth living. She was still assured that
only a straight novel would "pay," but she was living, meeting all her
expenses, giving her family many luxuries, and saving a little sum for
a rainy day she foresaw on her horoscope. To be comfortably clothed and
fed, to have time and tools for her work, is all she ever has asked of
life.

Among Mrs. Porter's readers "At the Foot of the Rainbow" stands as
perhaps the author's strongest piece of fiction.

In August of 1909 two books on which the author had been working for
years culminated at the same time: a nature novel, and a straight
nature book. The novel was, in a way, a continuation of "Freckles,"
filled as usual with wood lore, but more concerned with moths than
birds. Mrs. Porter had been finding and picturing exquisite big night
flyers during several years of field work among the birds, and from
what she could have readily done with them she saw how it would be
possible for a girl rightly constituted and environed to make a living,
and a good one, at such work. So was conceived "A Girl of the
Limberlost." "This comes fairly close to my idea of a good book," she
writes. "No possible harm can be done any one in reading it. The book
can, and does, present a hundred pictures that will draw any reader in
closer touch with nature and the Almighty, my primal object in each
line I write. The human side of the book is as close a character study
as I am capable of making. I regard the character of Mrs. Comstock as
the best thought-out and the cleanest-cut study of human nature I have
so far been able to do. Perhaps the best justification of my idea of
this book came to me recently when I received an application from the
President for permission to translate it into Arabic, as the first book
to be used in an effort to introduce our methods of nature study into
the College of Cairo."

Hodder and Stoughton of London published the British edition of this
work.

At the same time that "A Girl of the Limberlost" was published there
appeared the book called "Birds of the Bible." This volume took shape
slowly. The author made a long search for each bird mentioned in the
Bible