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Page 2
My mother was a good deal embarrassed when questioned, and finally
confessed that I never said anything worthy of mention until I was
quite "grown up;" a statement that is cheerfully corroborated by all
the authorities consulted. . . . Do not seek, then, to pierce my happy
obscurity. . . .
Believe me, dear Bozzy,
Sincerely your Johnson,
(K. D. W.)
Postscript by Johnson's Sister,--
The above report is substantially correct, though a few touches of
local color were added which we see Johnson's modesty has moved her to
omit.
My sister was certainly a capable little person at a tender age,
concocting delectable milk toast, browning toothsome buckwheats, and
generally making a very good Parent's Assistant. I have also visions
of her toiling at patchwork and oversewing sheets like a nice
old-fashioned little girl in a story book; and in connection with the
linsey woolsey frock and the sled before mentioned, I see a blue and
white hood with a mass of shining fair hair escaping below it, and a
pair of very pink cheeks.
Further to illustrate her personality, I think no one much in her
company at any age could have failed to note an exceedingly lively
tongue and a general air of executive ability.
If I am to be truthful, I must say that I recall few indications of
budding authorship, save an engrossing diary (kept for six months
only), and a devotion to reading.
Her "literary passions" were the _Arabian Nights_, _Scottish Chiefs_,
_Don Quixote_, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_, _Irving's Mahomet_, _Thackeray's
Snobs_, _Undine_, and the _Martyrs of Spain_. These volumes, joined to
an old green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were
the chief of her diet.
But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a
certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"--not so called
because it _took_ the prize, alas! but because it competed for it.
There is also a myth in the household (doubtless invented by my mother)
that my sister learned her letters from the signs in the street, and
taught herself to read when scarcely out of long clothes. This may be
cited as a bit of "corroborative detail," though personally I never
believed in it.
Johnson's Sister,
N. A. S.
Like many who have won success in literature, her taste and aptitude
showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take _Polly Oliver's
Problem_ as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following
of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs.
Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a
story, _Half a Dozen Housekeepers_, which was published in _St.
Nicholas_ in the numbers for November and December, 1878. She was
living at the time in California, and more to the purpose even than
this bright little story was the preparation she was making for her
later successes in the near and affectionate study of children whom she
was teaching. She studied the kindergarten methods for a year under
Emma Marwedel, and after teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College,
she was called upon to organize in San Francisco the first free
kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. She was soon joined in this
work by her sister; and the enthusiasm and good judgment shown by the
two inspired others, and made the famous "Silver Street Kindergarten"
not only a great object lesson on the Pacific Coast, but an inspiration
to similar efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia,
and the Hawaiian Islands.
This school was, and is at the present time, located in a densely
inhabited and poverty-ridden quarter of the city. It was largely among
the very poor that Mrs. Wiggin's full time and wealth of energy were
devoted, for kindergartening was never a fad with her as some may have
imagined; always philanthropic in her tendencies, she was, and is,
genuinely and enthusiastically in earnest in this work. It is
interesting to know that on the wall of one apartment at the Silver
Street Kindergarten hangs a life-like portrait of its founder,
underneath which you may read these words:--
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