Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature

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[241] cheerfully announced that they would come in and wait for him; and on being told that he was in Boston and might not return that day, they said that it was of no manner of consequence; they had just arrived from Ohio, were themselves authors, and would come in and remain until he got back. So they came in and waited, and proved to be Alice and Phoebe Cary. They were brought up in an Ohio cabin, had no candles to read by, and so read in the evening by lighted rags in a saucer of lard. Their only books were the Bible, the history of the Jews, Charlotte Temple, and a novel called The black penitents, with the cover gone and the last page all lost, so they never knew what became of the penitents, or whether the people who tore the precious book to pieces had also repented. Their published poems were full of dirges and despair, but they were the merriest of visitors, perfectly at home, and, as the poet luckily returned the next day, they stayed as long as they pleased and filled the house with fun.

It is only indirectly, as we have shown, that Uncle Tom's cabin can be classed as a product of the West. It was written in the