From this time forward, Gibson’s success as an artist was assured. And not very long after, he was induced to try his hand at authorship, with results quite as convincing. During the summer of 1878 he spent his vacation, in company with his wife, in the old homes at Newtown and at Washington, Connecticut. Returning to the city in the autumn, and recounting his delightful experiences to Mr. Alden, the editor of “Harper’s Magazine,” the latter insisted that Gibson should put them into an article which he should also illustrate. But even with the practice which he had given himself, in the brief articles he had furnished with many of his drawings, he distrusted his own capacity for literary work. He had no such innate sense of power to write as made him so confident with his pencil. He demurred at the proposition; but Mr. Alden was firm and persistent. “Write it just as you have told it to me,” was his encouraging word. His suggestion was followed, and in the August number of the monthly appeared an affectionate sketch of the old boyhood homes, under the title, which was but a thin disguise, “Hometown and Snug Hamlet.” It proved an instant success. The note struck was genuine and pleasing. The illustrations won the public eye. The canny editor suggested a similar article which should cover the winter phases of country life in the same vein. It was prepared, and appeared in the number for March, 1880; and had a reception as enthusiastic as his former venture. The idea of completing the cycle of the seasons was inevitable, and in June there followed the article on “Spring-Time,” which was pronounced “the most attractive paper” of this number of the magazine, whose “rhythmic prose” was not less highly commended than its illustrations, which another critic called “almost as good as spring itself.” In November the series was rounded out with “An Autumn Pastoral,” which led a reviewer to say “Mr. Gibson is a great artist, and has a great future before him.” In 1879 he furnished illustrations for E. P. Roe’s “Success with Small Fruits,” which appeared serially in “Scribner’s Magazine,” and which opened the way to an intimate friendship with the author. He made the designs for the poems of the Goodale sisters, “In Berkshire with the Wild-flowers.” But these were mere incidents in the work he was turning off, for half the firms in New York City, and on all sorts of subjects having to do with nature, with animal life, with flowers, and with fruits. In the spring he made a visit to “Roeland” to sketch, and he divided his August vacation between Connecticut and the White Mountains, where he gathered material for a year’s hard work. He busied himself, too, with work in water color, steadily keeping his ideals in mind, and his own art-training in hand.