Where the Laborers Are Few

Paul Phillips, a charming, one-legged vagabond does acrobatic tricks in the local tavern to earn coins. Phillips preaches a simple gospel, converting a young maid, Miss Jane Jay, and inspiring even Dr. Lavendar—the town’s revered minister—who encourages him to become an itinerant minister in America's pubs.

Margaret Deland (1857-1945) was born Margaretta Wade Campbell to Allegheny City, Allegheny County clothing merchants. Her mother died after childbirth and her father died shortly thereafter, so Deland's mother's sister raised her in Manchester, then a borough in Allegheny County. Deland attended boarding school in New York and studied art at Cooper Union. She married Lorin Fuller Deland, Harvard's football coach. Maggie, as she was called, had a deep interest in women's issues and over the years she opened her home to over 60 unwed mothers and their babies. She was a friend to Willa Cather. For magazines, especially Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic Monthly, she published dozens of short stories, most based on her early years in Maple Grove and Manchester. She died in Boston. Alice Barber Stephens (1858-1932), born in Salem, New Jersey and educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was an illustrator, painter, and engraver.