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