Mr. Milo Bush and Other Worthies: Their Recollections
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Fred Hayden Carruth was an American editor and author, known as Hayden Carruth.
Background
Fred Hayden Carruth was born on October 31, 1862; came of Scots-Irish farming stock. The pioneer of the line was John Carruth, who settled in Northborough, Massachussets, before 1734. William Carruth of the third generation emigrated to Lorraine, New York, where Oliver Powers Carruth, father of the subject of this biography, was born. With his wife, Mary Veeder, whom he married at Martville, New York, on October 27, 1859, Oliver moved westward to a farm in the township of Mount Pleasant, near Lake City, Wabasha County, Minnesota, where Fred Hayden, their eldest child, was born.
Education
Although in his youth Carruth had few good books and, as he said, "dodged institutions of learning, " he early showed ability as a writer. After teaching in the local schools, he studied for one year, 1881-82, at the University of Minnesota.
Career
For a year he worked on a newspaper in Minneapolis. At the age of twenty-one in 1883 he established a weekly newspaper, the Estelline Bell, in the small prairie town of Estelline, Territory of Dakota.
For three years his brightly written newspaper won favorable attention for its effervescent humor, which other editors clipped. Despite its national fame, the paper had few paid subscribers, and after three years Carruth sold out. With Samuel Travers Clover he established the Dakota Bell, a humorous weekly, in Sioux Falls. Again adequate support was lacking, so that within a year Carruth abandoned the magazine and moved to New York City. For four years, 1888-92, he wrote a daily humorous editorial for the New York Tribune. From 1892 to 1905, except the years 1900-02 when he was editor of "The Drawer" of Harper's Magazine, Carruth as a free-lance author wrote short stories, boys' serials, sketches, essays, and verse for Harper's Weekly, Century, the Cosmopolitan, the Saturday Evening Post, and the Youth's Companion. During these years two collections of short stories were published in book form: The Adventures of Jones (1895) and Mr. Milo Bush and Other Worthies, Their Recollections (1899), illustrated by A. B. Frost. Based in part upon frontier characters, such as peddlers, shyster lawyers, miners, and gullible immigrants, these stories follow the pattern of the tall tale. Joyous exaggeration, like that of a pack peddler who sells a clotheshorse to each of some two dozen Norwegians looking for a present to carry to a wedding, marks these yarns, but unlike Harte's and Twain's famous stories in this tradition there is no moralizing, no striving for esthetic elevation, and no social criticism. With clean, deft cartoonist's strokes Carruth built delightful extravaganzas. In The Voyage of the Rattletrap (1897), a semi-humorous tale for boys, Carruth chronicled a trip made through Nebraska and Dakota in a prairie schooner. Most famous of his books is Track's End, originally published serially in condensed form in 1897 in the Youth's Companion, but not issued separately as a book until 1911. This swift-moving adventure tale, with a plot as breathless as that in Stevenson's Kidnapped, concerns an eighteen-year-old boy who is left alone to guard a Dakota town when the inhabitants depart during the winter suspension of railroad service. He outwits a gang of outlaws, scares away a group of marauding Indians, and finally rescues the returning inhabitants from starvation in a snowdrift. Of Carruth's other writings the best, probably, is the article on South Dakota contributed to Ernest Gruening's These United States (2 vols. , 1923 - 24). In 1905 Carruth became literary editor of Woman's Home Companion, a position he retained until 1917, when he surrendered active editorial work to devote himself to "The Postscript, " a final page in the Companion which he wrote from 1915 until his death. Here in popular columnist fashion he commented upon the contents of the magazine; rallied the authors and artists upon their errors, foibles, and affectations, and commented wittily upon the spirit of the age. More readers' letters referred to his page than to any other subject. His fame in later years derived almost wholly from this popular magazine feature.
He used his column in the fight for child-labor legislation. Strongly domestic and sensitively concerned over the welfare of his four sons, he reflected in his magazine the sorrows and joys and idealism of the average reader, for he had experienced years of financial stringency and he had buoyantly carried on after the untimely death of two children.
Achievements
He was famous for his short stories, boys' serials, sketches, essays, and verse. Most famous of his books is Track's End, originally published serially in condensed form in 1897 .
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Politics
In political and economic thinking he shared the progressive attitude of middle-western Republicanism; in his later years his independency leaned toward Socialism.
Personality
Carruth's creative imagination was incessantly busy; he talked as he wrote, and his conversation was constantly entertaining and stimulating. Most of his stories came from his mind and not from experience. He was not sociable in the ordinary sense of the word: he had no formal social or club life, and he had few close friends. Yet he was readily approachable; fellow staff members on his magazines and other writers found his encouragement uncommonly sympathetic and helpful.
Never caustic, ever kindly, loyal, patient, he maintained through his career that balanced wit which enlivens and enlightens but does not sting. Even on his deathbed he joked, so that those standing by were compelled to laugh through their tears.
Quotes from others about the person
"He had begun life as a country editor, " said a colleague, "and he brought over into this national magazine the best qualities of local journalism alert observation, shrewdness, humor, a crisp prose style without affectation, candor without malice, and a sympathetic interest in everything and everybody".
Connections
He was married to Ettie Leah Gorton of Lake City, Minnesota, on June 28, 1884; she died on August 16, 1929.
