Emily Grant Hutchings

“ Instead we got the words :
"When a board is sprung, it lets in rain. It is Emily who has to hold the drip pan for the temperamental ones."
"Thank you for those few kind words, Mark," I said. "But if you think enough of me to trust me with this important work, why do you single me out for all the scoldings, when Edwin and Lola sometimes deserve at least a share in your displeasure?"
"Whist, Hannibal girl, we know our office force," was the humorous rejoinder. ”

“ In each case there was a sharp deviation from the plot of the story, as it had been given to us in the synopsis.
After one of these experiences, which resulted in the introduction of a paragraph that was rather clever but not at all pertinent, Mark regained
control with the impatiently traced words:
"Every scribe here wants a pencil on earth."
Not until the middle of summer did we achieve that sureness of touch which now enables us to recognize, intuitively,
the presence of the one scribe whose thoughts we are eager to transmit. ”

“ I did not intend to start another story so soon, but other influences are so strong that they may try to dominate the board. This will not tire you so much. You must be determined not to permit intruders. If they are recognized, you will not be free of them again. I am pushed aside. Leave the board when they appear. Good-bye."
The use of the name, Happy Hollow, forms a link with Hannibal; but if any of the characters in "Jap Herron" were drawn from life, they must have belonged to Mark Twain s generation and not to mine. ”

“ Hays has written much light fiction; but it is necessary for her to write a story at one sitting. If it does not come "all in one piece" it is foredoomed to failure. I know nothing of Mark Twain s habits ; but in all the work we have done for him, the first draft has been rough and vigorous, and sweeping changes have been made by him while the work was undergoing revision. In the case of "Jap Herron" some of the most important changes were made without a rereading of the story, changes that involved incidents which we had forgotten, and for which I was compelled to search the original record. ”

“ Then the outline of a typical Mark Twain story came in short, explosive sentences. It was entitled, "Up the Furrow to
Fortune." A brief account of its coming seems vital to the more sustained work which was destined to follow it. I was not
present at the next regular meeting of the society; but at its close I was summoned to the telephone and informed that Mark Twain had come again and had said that "the Han nibal girl" was the one for whom he and Mrs. Hays had been waiting. When they
asked him what he meant, the planchette made reply :
"Consult your record for 1911." ”

“ The appearance of Agnesia was one of the keen surprises of the story, and before we realized what Jap's little sister would mean to Bloomtown, Mark interrupted his dictation with the words, "Stop ! Girls, the yarn is nearly all unwound. We will skip a bit that we will tie in later. But now Bill sat doubled over the case, the stick held listlessly in his hand. Nervously he fingered the copy, not knowing what he was reading."
Without a break, we received the brief final chapter, ending with the words, "Isabel wants to call him Jasper William." The planchette added, "The End." ”

“ Our literary output
is well known, and not even the severest psychological skeptic could assert that it bears any resemblance to the literary
style of "Jap Herron."
Mrs. Hays has found the best market for her short stories with one of the large religious publishing houses, and in
the early days Mark Twain seemed to fear that her subconscious mind might inadvertently color or distort his thought, in
process of transmission. We had come to the end of our fourth session when he added this:
"There will be minor errors that you will be able to take care of. ”

“ I have never experienced more genuine grief at the grave of a departed friend or relative than I felt when this woman, who had come to be more than human to me, was released from her envelope of mortal clay. ”

“ After that, I contrived to get control of my nerves, and the rest of the dictation was not so difficult. When we had received the crisp final sentence, "And stay he did," the planchette went right on with this information, "This is the first copy of the first chapter. There will be 25 or more chapters. This is enough for this time, as the office force is a little weak. But results. . . very good. We will finish the other story and dip into this at the next session. There will be better speed in this, for there will be no revision until it is finished. We will work hard and fast. ”

“ That the story of Jap Herron and the two short stories which preceded it are the actual post-mortem work of Samuel L. Clemens, known to the world as Mark Twain, we do not
for one moment doubt. His individuality has been revealed to us in ways which could leave no ques tion in our minds. The
little, intimate touches which reveal personality are really of more importance than the larger and more conspicuous fact
that neither Mrs. Hays nor I could have written the fiction that has come across our transmission board. ”

“ Lola must be passive. If she tries to watch for intruders, she gets in my way. So it is up to the Hannibal girl."
I do not know, even now, how I could have prevented the trouble that well-nigh wrecked our work. It is true I had taken part in another psychic demonstration, but it was in a remote part of the city and it had nothing to do with Mark Twain s "pencil." However, I took no further chance with psychic investigation.
When Jap Herron was elected Mayor of Bloomtown, and the girl he loved had walked right into his astonished arms, it seemed to us that the story must be ended. ”

“ Don't worry, Emily. He understood you. He knows the Hannibal girl is honest," was the comforting reply.
When the revision of the story was under way, and several fragments had been dictated, the planchette spelled the words, "I want to add something to the Reedy chapter," and without further ado it proceeded: "The Bloomtown Herald did itself proud that week." That fragment was the easiest of them all to fit into place. At its conclusion we were favored with a bit of pleasantry that seems significant. My husband gave us a lift whenever he could spare the time ”

“ Under Mark's specific instruction she has schooled herself to keep her mind as nearly blank as is possible for a woman who is absolutely conscious and normal, and the evidence that some thing humorous was being transmitted through her would be diverting, to say the least. As for my own part in the work, I seldom realized the import of the sentences I had spelled out, my whole attention being concentrated on the rapidly gliding pointer. When my husband read aloud the copy he had taken down it almost invariably came to Mrs. Hays and me as some thing entirely new. ”

“ All that we have done in the past is just forging the hammer for the larger strokes we are going to make." The second was similar; but the man who appeared to her was a stocky, bald-headed man in a frock coat. When she asked him who he was and what he wanted, he replied, "Mark Twain sent me to call on you."
At this time, "Jap Herron" was being revised, and she supposed that this man, with the striking personality, would be introduced somewhere. However, the story was ended, and no such character had appeared. ”

“ Hays what I intended to do, I took the copy to William Marion Reedy1, permitting him to infer that I had created it, and asked him to tell me whether, in his judgment, the story was worth
1 William Marion Reedy, Editor and Publisher of Reedy s Mir ror, a weekly journal published in St. Louis, has long been in terested in psychic phenomena, as a source of exotic and un usual literature. He has also discovered and developed much purely terrestrial literary talent, having brought out some of the best poets and fiction writers of present-day America, As a critic, he is a recognized master. ”

“ The following chapter was almost as tightly packed with incident, and in the midst of it there was a break, with an astonishing explanation. Three evenings in succession we had had trouble with the planchette. It had seemed to me that Mrs. Hays was trying to pull it from beneath my fingers. Mean while she had mentally accused me of digital heaviness. She uses the finger tips of her left hand while I use my right. As a rule our touch is so light that the planchette glides automatically. ”

“ Reedy alone and explain to him that "Jap Herron" had come to us over that insensate board, but opportunity was denied me. As soon as luncheon was over we went up to that beautiful yellow room in which the best of Reedy s Mirror is created, and Mrs. Hays and I placed the board on our knees. As soon as Mr. Reedy's fountain pen was ready for action our planchette began:
"Well, I should doff my plaidie and don a kirtle, for tis not the sands o Dee but the wearing o the green." There was a wide sweep of the planchette, and then, " Tis not the shine of steel that always reflects ”

“ Emily talking over the telephone and making promises that are not good for our work."
When I had been questioned concerning the meaning of this rebuke, and had explained its import, Mark added: "If we
are going to make good there must be concentration, to that end. Get busy." We did! It was a hot July night, and the
planchette flew over the board so swiftly that at times I could scarcely keep pace with it as I pronounced the letters. With
other amanuenses I had been forced to pronounce the fin ished words, and to repeat sentences in whole or in part ”

“ The result was that another apostrophe was placed in the middle of the board, directly under the
letter S. In connection with the M-dash we had a yet more start ling evidence of an outside personality, one dependent on us
for his means of communication, but wholly in
dependent of our thought and knowledge. ”