sity, New York. She
graduated from Teachers College in 1899. Her first school was in the
primary department of Public School 147, on East Broadway, New York,
where she taught from 1899 to 1901. Here she met all the "little
aliens," the Morris and Isidore, Yetta and Eva of her stories, and won
her way into their hearts. To her friends she would sometimes tell of
these children, with their odd ideas of life and their dialect. "Why
don't you write these stories down?" they asked her, and at last she sat
down and wrote her first story, "A Christmas Present for a Lady." She
had no knowledge of editorial methods, so she made four copies of the
story and sent them to four different magazines. Two of them returned
the story, and two of them accepted it, much to her embarrassment. The
two acceptances came from _McClure's Magazine_ and _The Century_. As
_McClure's_ replied first she gave the story to them, and most of her
other stories were first published in that magazine.

When they appeared in book form, they were welcomed by readers all over
the country. Even the President of the United States wrote to express
his thanks to her, in the following letter:

Oyster Bay, N. Y.
July, 26, 1905.

My dear Miss Kelly:--

Mrs. Roosevelt and I and most of the children know your very
amusing and very pathetic accounts of East Side school children
almost by heart, and I really think you must let me write and thank
you for them. When I was Police Commissioner I quite often went to
the Houston Street public school, and was immensely impressed by
what I saw there. I thought there were a good many Miss Baileys
there, and the work they were doing among their scholars (who were
largely of Russian-Jewish parentage like the children you write of)
was very much like what your Miss Bailey has done.

Very sincerely yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.

After two years of school room work, Miss Kelly's health broke down, and
she retired from teaching, although she served as critic teacher in the
Speyer School, Teachers College, for a year longer. One of the persons
who had read her books with delight was Allen Macnaughton. Soon after he
met Miss Kelly, and in 1905 they were married. They lived for a time at
Oldches