These stories Mr. Stockton took very great pleasure in writing, and always regarded them as some of his best work, and was gratified when his critics wrote of them in that way.  They have become famous, and have been translated into several languages, notably Old Pipes and the Dryad, The Bee Man of Orne, and The Griffin and the Minor Canon.  This last story was suggested by Chester Cathedral, and he wrote it in that 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 the magazine received so many letters asking for another paper that