The William Henry letters

Front matter

ITERS i n ij is one oi the three books declared byTHEODORE RpDSEVELT to be the favorite sto¬ ries of his boyhood, “because.” he said,“they were first-class, good, healthy stories, inter¬ esting* in the first place, and in the next place teaching manliness, decency, and good conduct.”

ABBY MORTON DIAZ

I

Introduction

William Henry is the forerunner of the American boy in literature. This red-headed, freckle-faced, warm-hearted, good sport of a ten-year-old boy stepped into Our Young Folks in the late sixties, a year or two before Aldrich’s Story of A Bad Boy appeared in the same magazine and prepared the way for Jack Hazard, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Penrod, the whole glorious company of real boys who are the delight of boy readers and the most satisfactory of all sources of information concerning boys.

Before William Henry, there had been Rollo and Jonas, to be sure, but they were different. They didn’t talk or act like boys. Only once was Rollo known to laugh long and loud. He and Jonas were always serious. They were bent on acquiring use¬ ful information. They liked nothing better than a good discussion.

William Henry was not a brilliant scholar, but he had the gift of laughter and knew how to use it to his advantage when the boys at school plagued him. He knew how to make friends and keep them. He liked the things most boys like. He counted on having a good time wherever he went. Proof of it lies in Mrs. Diaz’s masterly description of the contents of the hair-covered trunk in his snug little room at Summer Sweeting Place. It is significant that there was a dime novel among his treasures.

William Henry liked his family, his grandmother — to whom most of his letters from school were written — best of all, and no wonder, for Grand¬ mother’s confidence in her Billy was as implicit as her affection for him. Billy’s wise silent father had his own place and so had Georgiana, his appealing little sister, and jolly Uncle Jacob, hospitable Aunt Phebe, and their three girls, — Lucy Maria, Matilda and Hannah Jane, — and little Tommy, forever in mischief. Into this lively, fun-making household William Henry brought Dorry Baker home from school for a visit, and Dorry had the time of his life, as his letters testify. Dorry Baker was one of the big boys at Crooked Pond School, who be-

INTRODUCTION gan by teasing William Henry and ended by becom¬ ing his best friend.

There were all kinds of boys at Crooked Pond School. Mr. Augustus, a tall boy in spectacles “ who knows a lot,” Old Wonder Boy, the boaster from New Jersey who “ tells whoppers,” Bubby Short, who saved Billy from being whipped in place of Tom Cush, the bad boy who runs away to sea and comes back a man.

Nor were William Henry’s school friendships limited to boys. There are the Two Betsys who keep a shop and give him the famous hair-cut, old Capper Skyblue with his donkey cart, even the Schoolmaster himself calls him “ Flying Billy,” and likes him “ because he runs fast and won’t lie ”.

One feels that Crooked Pond School was a so¬ cialized school in the true sense of that phrase. One feels also that Summer Sweeting Place was a home where ideas and companionship were placed above household routine and a derivative code of conduct. There was no nagging in that family. There was plenty of time for picnics and festivals, for dancing and singing and lively games, and an allpervading flavor of good talk. There is more na¬ tive wit and idiomatic colorful American language in this book than is to be found in any other book of the period.

The creator of William Henry and his home and school environment was vividly aware of the world she was living in. Education, to her, meant an essential part of everyday life, and it concerned everybody, old and young. In sending Billy away to boarding-school to keep him from being spoiled by his grandmother, the interests of the whole fam¬ ily were enriched and enlivened by sharing his ad¬ ventures and his friendships.

Mrs. Diaz was a born teacher as well as a dramatic story-teller, an ardent progressive in the field of education for parenthood as well as for childhood. That she was years ahead of her time, one quickly realizes in turning from her crisp, amusing char¬ acterization of people, young and old, to other writing of her day.

She is at her best in her dramatizations, and of these William Henry and Polly Cologne possess qualities of perennial charm. If literature is a

INTRODUCTION transcript of life, William Henry and Polly Cologne have an enduring place, for they are part and parcel of the New England life Mrs. Diaz knew and lived. “ My grandmother was just like that — she talked and did everything for us just as she describes in the William Henry Letters,” says her grandson, Ralph Diaz, to whom I am indebted for an inter¬ esting life sketch published while Mrs. Diaz was still living. Abby Morton Diaz was born in Ply¬ mouth, Massachusetts, a descendant of one of the original “ Pilgrims ”. Her father, a ship-builder, became deeply interested in free education, and travelled about the country with Horace Mann, speaking with much native eloquence.

Abby Morton grew up in an atmosphere of re¬ form. After slavery was abolished, she was drawn into equal suffrage. But reform was always tem¬ pered by singing and dancing, by her lively wit, and the great variety of her interests and accom¬ plishments. She knew more old ballads than anybody else in town and could sing them steadily for a whole evening. She kept a singing-school in her father’s kitchen. She held her first dancing classes in the empty wood-room of the schoolhouse of the village where she was teaching, and sang the directions. She could and did “ pick up every¬ thing that came along ” which could be turned to practical account, for she married young and was left with several small children to provide for.

When first urged to write for publication, she scoffed at the idea and said that there was not enough in her, to use her own expression. But when at last she did write a story, she aimed high and sent it to the Atlantic Monthly , having no idea it would be accepted, but preferring, as she ex¬ pressed it, to work her way down from the best market.

Her writings were much in demand. Their wit and wisdom and homely good sense were watched for in the magazines, and speedily collected in book form. It is interesting to learn how The William Henry Letters originated. Mrs. Diaz heard of a boy who sent home from boarding-school a letter saying they used pink soap, and with this slight foundation she wrote for Our Young Folks a few imaginary letters which she supposed would all ap-

INTRODUCTION pear in one issue. But the editor, recognizing their serial value, strung them out through several num¬ bers. When the readers, boys and girls and even well-known men and women, called for more, Mrs. Diaz was persuaded to “ carry on ” with William Henry, and in another year or so to edit and pub¬ lish the Letters in book form with an introduction in which she assumes the character of one Silas Y. Fry who had served in the Army of the Potomac, who, while collecting barrels of old clothing for the Freedmen, visits William Henry’s family at Summer Sweeting Place and in due time meets Wil¬ liam Henry himself. This preface has been re¬ tained, together with most of the editorial comments which will have reminiscent value for many readers.

Theodore Roosevelt read and reread these Let¬ ters in the bound volumes of Our Young Folks , which he so affectionately regarded, boy and man, as “ the very best magazine in the world The picture-letters among Theodore RoosevelTs Let¬ ters to His Children are, it seems to me, a reflection of his delight in William Henry’s drawings. a I really believe,” says Roosevelt in his Autobiography, “ I enjoy going over Our Young Folks now as much as ever. Cast Away in the Cold, Good Old Times, or Grandfather’s Struggle for a Home¬ stead, and The William Henry Letters were first class, good healthy stories, interesting in the first place, and in the next place teaching manliness, decency, and good conduct. My beloved Our Young Folks taught me much more than any of my text books.”

It is, then, as a vivid picture of American home and school life at the end of the Civil War as well as a sturdy pioneer of American boyhood that I present William Henry to the boys and girls, the parents and teachers, the editors and authors of children’s books of the 1930’s, with a reminder of the well-timed comment of a boy critic of the 1870’s, who said, “ What Mrs. Diaz writes is always funny and interesting.” These two qualities remain first requisites in successful writing for children.

Anne Carroll Moore

New York

Washington’s Birthday