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420 who needed food, and many who did not." It is because of this gastronomic background that many literary reviewers, mostly men, have mentioned the dinners in her stories.

One of their regular Sunday visitors was an early Oregon poet of promise but of abortive ambition—Eugene L. Thorpe. Later he was a contributor to the Portland papers. "In my opinion," says Mrs. Higginson, "some of his poems were far better than any of Minnie Myrtle's." Later he decided to give up writing poetry and did so, for reasons that he stated one day to Mrs. Higginson's sister, Carrie Blake Morgan, who was also a poet: "Carrie, I'm going to stop writing poetry. A fellow needs to go nearly crazy be fore he can write a poem." Since by that time both Mrs. Higginson and her sister were confirmed addicts, they considered this a great joke on themselves.

Her father was the story teller, with a relish for dramatic presentation, but her mother was the poet, often calling her "to see or hear something beautiful in nature—a falling star, a rainbow, a mourning dove, a new red rose. From her I inherited a passionate love of old china, antique furniture, Georgian silver—with which my home is now filled."

From Risley's Landing they moved to Oregon City, where she lived for several years. She attended the private school of Dr. S. D. Pope, who often made her stand in the corner with her face to the wall so she could not make the other children laugh, but who gave her encouragement by praising her first compositions. Of the rest of her formal schooling she says in correction of another biographical myth: