The Convention of Western Writers.

The Chicago people who went down to Indianapolis last Tuesday, to attend the convention of Western writers, have returned; and they are telling a great many amusing stories of their experiences. It would appear that the convention was not as numerously attended as its promoters had hoped it would be; the mistake seems to have been in calling a second convention so soon after the date of the first: once a year is often enough for authors and poets to get together for consultation. The Chicago delegates were treated very hospitably; and it is perhaps to their credit that they took no part in the proceedings, except to stand around, look dignified, and hear what the other people had to say.

“So you’re from Chicago, are you?” would be the first question asked.

“Yes.”

“What have you written?”

Here would follow a modest confession, made in tones indicative of embarrassment.

“But have you never written any thing for ‘The Current’?” and this question would be put with an expression of countenance that seemed to add, “If you have, you must be all right; but if you haven’t, you can’t amount to much.”

The rooms of the Chicago contingent were the 78resort of the rural littérateurs with “something to read you for your private opinion.” Poets came in from every part of Indiana, and each of these poets had a bundle of original dialect poetry. Mad because they were not billed in the programme of the convention, these inspired creatures insisted upon reading their verses to everybody they met. Mr. Maurice Thompson seems to have been the man who impressed the Chicago visitors most favorably: he was president of the convention, and one of the first things he did was to tell the poets that they were nuisances. As the convention proceeded, and bedlam began to prevail, Mr. Thompson sat quietly in his chair, regarding the scene with an expression of hopelessness and contempt commingled. When the last hours of the convention drew on apace, the poets and authors made a constant tumult for the privilege of reading their poems and things. Of course, there was not time for all to be heard; and the result was, that each tried to make himself or herself heard. The confusion was indescribably ludicrous.

Bill Nye was so disgusted that he retired early from the fray; and so did James Whitcomb Riley; Thompson staid because he had to.

One old lady about seventy-five years of age had prepared a poem; but when she looked in her reticule for the manuscript, she could not find it. Her efforts to recover her lost poem would have been funny had they not been pathetic. She set 79everybody to looking under the chairs and on the tables for the manuscript; and even the cover of the piano was lifted, in the suspicion that the lost poem might have found its way into that instrument.

“Oh, I’m so glad to meet you!” said one gushing Hoosier littérateur to a Chicago lady, “for you can tell me whether the author of ‘The Humbler Poets’ came down from Chicago with you. I would so like to see him!”

It was a good thing for the gentleman in question that he was a thousand miles away. But there were constant and numerous inquiries after him by poets and poetesses who claimed to have “several little gems” of their own which they felt he would “be glad to add to his collection.”

At first it was determined to hold the next convention in Chicago; but subsequently this determination was reconsidered, and the executive committee was empowered to call the next convention at any place it might choose. One of the Indiana poetesses approached a Chicago visitor, and said triumphantly, “Well, you aren’t goin’ to get it, after all!”

“Get what?”

“The next convention.”

“Well, that is a matter that doesn’t concern me at all,” replied the Chicagoan. “I’m not here representing Chicago: I’ve come simply to report your proceedings for my paper.”

“Oh, yes! I know,” said the poetess; “but Chicago 80has acted so indifferent about it that she can’t have it now. Why, if they had agreed upon Terry Hut, I’d have risen right up in the convention, and thanked ’em, and bid ’em welcome!”