The Browns

By J. F.

The Browns--Not Sisters

They Have the Home-Made Flavor of New England Itself

Miss Alice Brown has just written a short novel,* announced as a story about a New England spinster who suddenly becomes interested in murder. She thinks most detectives stupid, she loudly affirms that if she were a murderer she could cover her tracks far more successfully than those who wend their devious ways through the pages of detective stories. Presently she finds herself accused of murder. What a nice idea it is, to be sure!

Miss Alice Brown, writer of realistic New England stories, of Children of Earth (the $10,000 Winthrop Ames prize play), of several other long and short plays of beauty and dramatic value, is a kindly lady, born in New Hampshire, living on Pinckney Street, Boston, whose sense of humor is constantly present. Gray-haired, with great dignity, with a constant smile, this woman who gives place to few others in the field of the American short story arrived at a "literary party" recently with a catnip mouse for the cat of the household, "Napoleon."

"You know," she said, "I really never have made the most of my opportunities. When Mr. Ames' award was made, a famous manufacturer offered me a huge sum of money to go about the country giving talks on his personality. Think of that!"

She is thoroughly of Boston now, and of the best of Boston. The little group of authors now living there do not need to scramble for recognition; their work demands attention because of its thoughtful quality, its honesty.

Here, too, is Abbie Farwell Brown, loved of children and of many others. Though she is not a relative of Miss Alice's, they are great friends, and constantly taken for sisters. Both are deeply rooted in New England.

"A man came to buy my house the other day," Miss Abbie recounted. "He was one of these modern business men. He said that he would not leave until I had sold him the house; that nothing should stand in his way. Finally, I decided that there was only one way to get rid of him and that was to convince him that I was insane. 'All right,' I said, 'you may buy the house on one condition.' He assured me that conditions were nothing compared with his determination to own my house. 'Well,' I told him, 'there are two wells in my yard. I'm very fond of those wells. You may have the house, but you must arrange it so that I can take the wells with me.' ... He left."

These two pleasant ladies, writers of distinction and popularity, are in the real spirit of New England. It was Miss Abbie Brown who spoke for the writers of Boston at the recent dinner given there in honor of Miss Amy Lowell, about to sail for England to deliver lectures at various universities and elsewhere. It was a New Englander's speech that Miss Brown gave, and when Miss Lowell rose to reply, her reply was in terms of New England: two poems, one of a New England garden; one, the famous and beautiful Lilacs. Here are three women who adequately interpret the best of America, the sternest and the kindliest moods of the maligned Puritan tradition.

J. F.

*THE MYSTERIES OF ANN--Alice Brown--Macmillan ($2.00).