The Hawthorne Readers Author:Edward Everett Hale Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Elizabeth Eliza and the little boys looked at one another, and then hurried back to the house and told their mother. The horse was untied, and they all went to. ... more »ride. 4. APRIL By Helen Hunt Jackson Copyright, 1873, by Roberta Brothers About 1865 there appeared in a New York weekly newspaper a number of poems signed simply " H. H." These, as was afterward learned, were written by Helen Fiske Hunt (Oct. 18, 1831-Aug. 12, 1885), the daughter of Professor Fiske of Amherst College. Mrs. Hunt had passed through great sorrow in the loss of husband and children, and now at thirty-four years of age began her life as a writer. Some years later she married William S. Jackson, and made her home in Colorado, where she spent much of her time in a little log cabin on a peak looking down into Cheyenne Canon. Her Colorado life and her travels brought to her notice the wrongs done the Indians by our government. She took up their cause, and after careful investigation wrote " A Century of Dishonor," in which she showed how the red men had been plundered of their lands. The government made her a commissioner to examine into the condition of the Mission Indians of California; she did the work thoroughly, and made an able report. She then wrote her last book, " Ramona " (p. 230), which she hoped would HELEN HUNT JACKSON do for the Indian what " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had done for the slave. As a writer, Mrs. Jackson is noted for the grace and beauty of her language ; her poems show a keen love of nature, and her stories are strong and full of thought. OBINS call robins on tops of trees ; -- Doves follow doves with scarlet feet ; Frolicking babies, sweeter than these, Crowd green corners where highways meet. Violets stir and arbutus wakes, Claytonia's rosy bells unfold ; D...« less