Do I hear some critics exclaiming that there is nothing remarkable
about _How the Widow Won the Deacon_, the story by Lampton included in
this volume? It handles an amusing situation lightly and with grace.
It is one of those things that read easily and are often difficult to
achieve. Among his best stories are: _The People's Number of the
Worthyville Watchman_ (May 12, 1900, _Saturday Evening Post_), _Love's
Strange Spell_ (April 27, 1901, _Saturday Evening Post_), _Abimelech
Higgins' Way_ (August 24, 1001, _Saturday Evening Post_), _A Cup of
Tea_ (March, 1902, _Metropolitan_), _Winning His Spurs_ (May, 1904,
_Cosmopolitan_), _The Perfidy of Major Pulsifer_ (November, 1909,
_Cosmopolitan_), _How the Widow Won the Deacon_ (April, 1911,
_Harper's Bazaar_), and _A Brown Study_ (December, 1913,
_Lippincott's_). There is no collection as yet of his short stories.
Although familiarly known as "Colonel" Lampton, and although of
Kentucky, he was not merely a "Kentucky Colonel," for he was actually
appointed Colonel on the staff of the governor of Kentucky. At the
time of his death he was about to be made a brigadier-general and was
planning to raise a brigade of Kentucky mountaineers for service in
the Great War. As he had just struck his stride in short story
writing, the loss to literature was even greater than the patriotic
loss.

_Gideon_ (April, 1914, _Century_), by Wells Hastings (1878- ), the
story with which this volume closes, calls to mind the large number of
notable short stories in American literature by writers who have made
no large name for themselves as short story writers, or even otherwise
in letters. American literature has always been strong in its "stray"
short stories of note. In Mr. Hastings' case, however, I feel that the
fame is sure to come. He graduated from Yale in 1902, collaborated
with Brian Hooker (1880- ) in a novel, _The Professor's Mystery_