Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/162

 so much I found in it of the mighty swimmer, the enjoyable young comrade of trail and river, always ready to swing a paddle tirelessly or carry ungrumbling a full fair share of pack. I liked it, too, as her answer to the one year which she had ever been called upon to spend in undeniably tawdry surroundings.

But, alas, there came interruptionsone of them in the shape of the only appreciable illness she has ever hadand these pulled down her average daily output. On her big days the small typist clicked off fresh copy to the extent of from four to five thousand words; but still the appointed morning caught her some pages short of the end. The tale came to Finis a few days later. Its length, in that first incarnation, was some 40,000 words, or not far from what it is now.

Up to that point there had been, of course, no thought of print. It was I who introduced the question of print; and it had at that time no connection whatever with publication. The author of the story never had (and never has) experienced any school system, public or private, her education having been exclusively the home-made one devised by her mother; and I was beginning to think it high time that print became a part of it. It was in fine, my idea that we ought to have a piece of her work put