Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/452

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HISTORY OF OREGON LITERATURE

writing until the end of her life. It was published in 1934 by The Press of the Pioneers, New York. Thirty-four years after her first book was published and 40 years after it was written, she gave the public this one, which has so much freshness and originality that it was received not only as an unusual work to be written by a woman almost 80 but as intrinsically so. It has been already referred to as a delightful potpourri of historical sketches, and that briefly describes it. Her own statements, in each case, have been given in regard to all her other books, and the following is her comment, at less length, on An Oregon Iliad:

This is an Oregon story, but it is much more than that. It reaches back into the origins of Oregonians, and the spirit that brought them here. It is not adventure merely: it is history and it is life.

There was one other book of hers which has never been published. She visited Father Duncan of Metlakahtla, Alaska, and had proceeded far along in a book on him when Arctander's The Apostle of Alaska appeared in 1909. She had no knowledge whatever that this was being written, but even greater than her unexpectedness that anything of the sort should come out by another hand was her surprise at its title, given by a man who also knew nothing of her manuscript. She meant to call hers The Apostle of Alaska!

These books represent the significant and quantitative portion of her literary work, although she has written a few poems, only two of which have become well known: "The Oregon Skylark," and "The Oregon Grape," that was set to music by A. M. Sanders. There is also a pamphlet, now very rare, that she prepared for the University of Oregon Bulletin series—Semi-Centennial History of Oregon, 1896.

Reference to the Macedonian Cry of the Nez Perce's was made in the chapter "Writings of the Mis-