Mrs. Kirkland was recognised as one of the New York literary set during the flourishing of Willis. Her marriage to Professor William Kirkland (1827) took her to Central New York, and in 1839 to Michigan frontier. The emigration produced immediately _A New Home--Who’ll Follow_ (New York, 1839). “Miss Mitford’s charming sketches of village life,” she says in her preface, “suggested the form.” It is the best of her books, not only in its distinct historical value as a document of frontier life, but also in its vivacity and keen intelligence of style. Of structure there is very little, a mere series of descriptions, with an occasional sketch in narrative. Returning to New York in 1842, she opened a school for girls, wrote for the magazines, and published, as a sequel to her first book, _Forest Life_ (New York and Boston, 1842). Her tales, collected under the title _Western Clearings_ (New York, 1846), show the same qualities as her descriptions--racy dialect, dashes of penetrative characterisation, quick suggestion of manners; but their narrative consistency is not usually strong enough to hold interest. She returned to her first form in _Holidays Abroad_ (1849). After that the titles of her books suggest hack-work. Meantime Mr. Kirkland had won his place as an editor. Poe included them both, the husband perfunctorily, the wife cordially, among his _Literati_. THE BEE-TREE [_From “Western Clearings” 1846, a collection composed both of contributions to magazines and annuals and of new matter. The reprint below omits an explanatory introduction and an episodic love-story which, besides being feeble, is rendered quite superfluous by the dénouement._] It was on one of the lovely mornings of our ever lovely autumn, so early that the sun had scarcely touched the tops of the still verdant forest, that Silas Ashburn and his eldest son sallied forth for a day’s chopping on the newly-purchased land of a rich settler, who had been but a few months among us. The tall form of the father, lean and gaunt as the very image of Famine, derived little grace from the rags which streamed from the elbows of his almost sleeveless coat, or flapped round the tops of his heavy boots, as he strode across the long causeway that formed the communication from his house to the dry land. Poor Joe’s costume showed, if possible, a still greater need of the aid of that useful implement, the needle. His mother is one who thinks little of the ancient proverb that commends the stitch in time; and the clothing under her care sometimes falls in pieces, seam by seam. For want of this occasional aid is rendered more especially necessary by the slightness of the original sewing; so that the brisk breeze of the morning gave the poor boy no faint resemblance to a tall young aspen, “With all its leaves fast fluttering, all at once.” The little conversation which passed between the father and son was such as necessarily makes up much of the talk of the poor.