t
venerable city. The several tales were finally collected into a volume
under the title: The Bee Man of Orne and Other Stories, which is
included in the complete edition of his novels and stories. During the
whole of his literary career Mr. Stockton was an occasional contributor
of short stories and essays to The Youth's Companion.

Mr. Stockton considered his career as an editor of great advantage to
him as an author. In an autobiographical paper he writes:
"Long-continued reading of manuscripts submitted for publication which
are almost good enough to use, and yet not quite up to the standard of
the magazine, can not but be of great service to any one who proposes a
literary career. Bad work shows us what we ought to avoid, but most of
us know, or think we know, what that is. Fine literary work we get
outside the editorial room. But the great mass of literary material
which is almost good enough to print is seen only by the editorial
reader, and its lesson is lost upon him in a great degree unless he is,
or intends to be, a literary worker."

The first house in which we set up our own household goods stood in
Nutley, N.J. We had with us an elderly _attache_ of the Stockton family
as maid-of-all-work; and to relieve her of some of her duties I went
into New York, and procured from an orphans' home a girl whom Mr.
Stockton described as "a middle-sized orphan." She was about fourteen
years old, and proved to be a very peculiar individual, with strong
characteristics which so appealed to Mr. Stockton's sense of humor that
he liked to talk with her and draw out her opinions of things in
general, and especially of the books she had read. Her spare time was
devoted to reading books, mostly of the blood-curdling variety; and she
read them to herself aloud in the kitchen in a very disjointed fashion,
which was at first amusing, and then irritating. We never knew her real
name, nor did the people at the orphanage. She had three or four very
romantic ones she had borrowed from novels while she was with us, for
she was very sentimental.

Mr. Stockton bestowed upon her the name of Pomona, which is now a
household word in myriads of homes. This extraordinary girl, and some
household experiences, induced Mr. Stockton to write a paper for
Scribner's Monthly which he called Rudder Grange. This one paper was all
he intended to write, but it attracted immediate attention, was
extensively noticed, and much talked about. The editor of