sual achievement.

Her publishers have felt the pressure of this growing interest and it
was at their request that she furnished the data for a biographical
sketch that was to be written of her. But when this actually came to
hand, the present compiler found that the author had told a story so
much more interesting than anything he could write of her, that it
became merely a question of how little need be added.

The following pages are therefore adapted from what might be styled the
personal record of Gene Stratton-Porter. This will account for the very
intimate picture of family life in the Middle West for some years
following the Civil War.

Mark Stratton, the father of Gene Stratton-Porter, described his wife,
at the time of their marriage, as a "ninety-pound bit of pink
porcelain, pink as a wild rose, plump as a partridge, having a big rope
of bright brown hair, never ill a day in her life, and bearing the
loveliest name ever given a woman--Mary." He further added that "God
fashioned her heart to be gracious, her body to be the mother of
children, and as her especial gift of Grace, he put Flower Magic into
her fingers." Mary Stratton was the mother of twelve lusty babies, all
of whom she reared past eight years of age, losing two a little over
that, through an attack of scarlet fever with whooping cough; too ugly
a combination for even such a wonderful mother as she. With this brood
on her hands she found time to keep an immaculate house, to set a table
renowned in her part of the state, to entertain with unfailing
hospitality all who came to her door, to beautify her home with such
means as she could command, to embroider and fashion clothing by hand
for her children; but her great gift was conceded by all to be the
making of things to grow. At that she was wonderful. She started dainty
little vines and climbing plants from tiny seeds she found in rice and
coffee. Rooted things she soaked in water, rolled in fine sand, planted
according to habit, and they almost never failed to justify her
expectations. She even grew trees and shrubs from slips and cuttings no
one else would have thought of trying to cultivate, her last resort
being to cut a slip diagonally, insert the lower end in a small potato,
and plant as if rooted. And it nearly always grew!

There is a shaft of white stone standing at her head in a cemetery that
belonged to her on a corner of her husband's land; but to Mrs. Porter's
mind her mother's re