• Originally published in Scribner's Magazine, II (October, 1887), pp. 111-25. Reprinted in Otto the Knight (1891).
• "The focus of his analysis is the "swampland scenery and perceptive descriptions of what the poor did and believed and how they were alien to respectable society, whose standards intruded on their lives" (McMichael, p. 113).He indicates that Thanet "was seldom able to overcome a belief that decency, or reason, or esthetics, or the rules of the magazine trade required a demonstration of the necessity for redemption and the prevalence of moral retribution in the world. Such displays of authorial faith partly distinguished local color from the kinds of naturalism and regionalism that superseded it" (McMichael, p. 113). 

Basic summary:
The story opens with one-armed Jeff Griffin carrying home a tiny coffin for the recently dead baby of Cap'n Bulah, the love of his life (and distant cousin). Bulah is the widow of Sam Eller (the baby's father). Bulah still runs his boat, as she is determined to pay off his debts. When her baby dies, she is inconsolable.

On his way to show her the coffin, Jeff picks up Nate who tells him about a baby left at the plantation store. The widow Mrs. Brand is caring for the baby, and Jeff picks her up and takes her to his house where Bulah is still rocking her dead child. When he sets the boy on the floor, he cries for his mother and Bulah shakes herself out of her stupor, allowing her own baby to be buried. Jeff and Bulah begin to care for the child in February. In October his mother, a traveling cotton picker, returns and demands her child back.

The widow Brand saves the day when Headlights (real name Sabrina Mathews) tries to force the sheriff to tear the boy--now called Jeffy--from his foster parents. She demands board, cost of clothing, and cost of housing for the last eight months at a total of $27 to be paid in six months or Jeff and Bulah retain custody forever. Mr. Francis draws up a contract--thus, the "Mortgage on Jeffy."  Headlights demands the right to pay the debt early.

She returns when Jeffy has come down with a fever and they fear he'll develop pneumonia. He's always been puny, which was one of the reasons they refused to let her take him, as he would die without care he needs--care his mother can't give him on the road as part of a cotton-picking team. Jeff sees her in a stupor in the swamp and takes her home with him. Headlights realizes that she can't care for the child properly and makes Jeff and Bulah agree to marry and they can keep him. She develops pneumonia and dies. Before she does, she pulls a leather pouch from her neck and says it is for Jeffy.

Inside is the $27 and a copy of the mortgage.

Notes: I'm intrigued by the name "Headlights" here. It seems really odd. Also, I am not sure that this is as clearly sentimental or classist as McMichael seems to think. Headlights, just as with Dosier and Chaney before, has deep emotional feelings and ties to her son, even as she leaves him at 17 months at the store. Carrying a child that small from job to job couldn't be easy, and likely the child would have died. 

The whole mortgage situation is also weird. Obviously, Jeffy is not a slave or treated as property by Bulah and Jeff, but the idea of owning other people is definitely at play here. There's some weird "owning you to take care of you" stuff going on here (as in, you're being treated as property for your own good). 

• Originally appeared in Century Magazine, XXXIV (May 1887), 111-125. Reprinted later that year in Knitters in the Sun.
• Characters: Polly Ann Shinault and Lum Shinault, Whitsun Harp, Bud Boas. Lum, Polly, and Boas are tenant farmers.
• Polly Ann is described as "Indian-like" multiple times: "She paddled as easily as an indian" (Thanet, p. 304); "Until she was fifteen she had lived the solitary life of the people and grown up in their Indian-like reticence. When she was fifteen, her mother died and her father took her to Clover Bend" (Thanet, p. 317). "They spoke together in a low tone, but Polly Ann had the ears of an indian" (Thanet, p. 346).
• Polly Ann and Whitsun Harp were childhood friends and they carry the same bearing--this means that Harp also grew up in the Sunk Lands.
• The cypress swamp is again like a character; the magical nature of it pops up on page 308. After describing the swamp as a hideout for war criminals and later for escaped prisoners, Thanet mentions that "Plenty of grim traditions hung, heavy as its own miasma, over the cypress swamp" (Thanet, p. 308). Polly Ann is from "the 'Sunk Lands,' that mysterious region created by the great Lisbon earthquake,--an island in the swamps, half the year cutoff from the world, forgotten except by a few traders" (Thanet, p. 317). 
• McMichael calls "Whitsun Harp" the "best story in the collection" (p. 107) and indicated that even Howells "judged the author had resorted toan unrealistic ending to save the hero from sin. Howells liked to see wickedness punished" (p. 107). but he found the ending trite . McMichael includes,in full, the response letter French wrote to his criticism (see pp. 108-109).
• Thanet to Howells: "Then you most justly remark that a fairy providence is unworthy of fiction and find the whole proceeding wrong and unnatural" (McMichael, p. 108). She continues with "I quite agree with you. Only, dear Mr. Howells, I didn't do it" ​(p. 108). See below.
• McMichael notes that Howell "was apologetic. He had indeed misread the story and promised to retract his comments. And he asked permission to quote from herletterin his 'Editor's Study'" (p. 109). Her response to his request is printed on pages 109-110, and is interesting due to her focus on realism. See below for a partial response (McMichael, p. 110)

Basic Plot Summary: 

Part I: Polly Ann Shinault, wife of Lum, is out fixing the Clover Bend ferry-boat when she sees Whitsun Harp in the boat with her neighbor Boas. Harp has come by because he's heard Lum and Polly are missing a mule, and Polly acknowledges that, saying that Lum is off looking for it, but they assume it has been stolen. He proceeds to tell her his story of becoming a regulator, and how it seems like a calling from God. 

It's pretty clear Harp was sweet on Polly but Lum beat him to her. Harp mentions that as kids they played together and he told her everything then, which is why he felt the need to personally tell her why he had become a regulator.When he leaves, Boas tells Polly that Harp already warned Lum to shape up and to stop partying. He emphasizes the importance of Lum doing so by telling her different stories of Harp "giving a lickin'" to various people.

Lum comes home for supper and when Polly tells him Harp finds him "trifflin'" Lum indicates Harp had better mind his own business. We learn that Lum helps his wife with household chores, having helped his mother because his father was 'triflin.'" We also learn that "he had married Polly Ann out of compassion" (Thanet, p. 316) when her father died. He reasoned that "Nary un waiti' on 'er neether, 'less hit ar' Whitsun Harp. Ef he don' marry her, I reckon Ihed orter. 'Tain't no mo'n neighborly.' //Whitsun making no sign, he carried out his intention" (Thanet, p. 316).

In a conversation with Boas, Lum reveals the truth about his interactions with Savannah Lady. They are merely trying to make the man she loves jealous, and Lum thinks there's no harm in it. The trick works, and Morrow proposes to Savannah. Unfortunately, Lum, Whitsun, Polly, and Savannah all converge in the dry bottoms of the swamp and Harp mistakes Lum helping Savannah by giving her whiskey when she is ill to be some romantic tryst. He breaks of a switch and beats Lum. Polly sees it all and chides Lum for not standing up for himself, but she assures him she'll cook him a good dinner.

Lum is ashamed and cries because he thinks Polly doesn't love him, and he's sure this was the final straw. 

Part II:  Lum doesn't come home for dinner, despite Polly waiting. She finds a note that indicates he won't be back (Thanet, p. 328). He has taken the gun and plans to kill Whitsun Harp. "He had been beaten before his wife, his wife who valued strength and bravery beyond everything. And Whitsun, whom she praised because he was so strong and brave had beaten him" (Thanet, p. 328). He knows this is a high priority for Polly as her father, Old Man Gooden, shot a man for spitting in his face. According to Polly, "Paw hed ter shoot him" (Thanet, p. 329).

Lum assumes Polly pines after Harp, and he decides that if Harp kills him, Polly won't take up with him. On the other hand, if he kills Harp, Polly will never forgive him, either. So, his plan is to "go off on the cotton-boat afore sundown. All through this wide worl' I'll wander, my lone" (Thanet, p.329). 

Lum (short for Columbus) crosses paths with Boas,who is dying. Boas tells Lum he's come out to warn Harp that some other men are coming to kill him. Boas killed another man a few years back, and ever since he's been haunted by it. He fears going to hell, and he hopes that by warning Harp, God will give him mercy. Unfortunately, he's too weak to go all the way across the swamp and he begs Lum to do it for him. Lum does, but he tells Harp that as soon as Boas dies, he will kill Harp. Harp, upon hearing the truth about Savannah, swears he'll make it up to Lum and Polly, but Lum says there's no way he can.

It takes three weeks for Boas to die and Lum acts weird, taking to the woods mostly. Polly worries about him and follows him, but she's not sure what to do and just fears he's gone mad. When Boas dies, Lum joins Harp at the grave and tells him he's still going to kill him and where to meet after the funeral. Harp asks Lum to meet him at the plantation store first, and he does. Harp makes things right by admitting to being wrong and apologizes.  He and Lum shake hands, and Lum decides to go squirrel hunting.

Meanwhile, Polly notices Lum's boat is gone and she follows him to Clover Bend (using Boas' boat). She hears a single shot and runs towards it, finding Harp dead on the ground, a smile on his face. Lum is nearby, but he tells her the story of how Harp made things right and that it wasn't he who shot him.  He tells Polly he'll leave her to her goodbyes, and she realizes he thinks she loves Harp.  It turns out she never loved anyone but Lum, and the story ends with them embracing, Harp's dead, smiling body still on the ground.

• Originally appeared in Scribner's Magazine, I (February 1887), 151-160. Reprinted later that same year in Knitters in the Sun.
• Set in St. Augustine, Florida.
• "The characters included the conventional beautiful heroine, an army captain, a Negro servant, and a carpetbagger from Tennessee" (McMichael, p. 102).
• Race issues: The stereotype  of the wise and loyal to the death former slave. Also, it is made clear Venus is also Seminole, and "her features, [were] Indian rather than Negro" (Thanet, p. 272).
• Even though Venus uses the word "witch" to describe her mother, McMichael decides it is "voodoo" (p. 102).  Interestingly, Venus does have a clear awareness of the repercussions of curses and that they backfire.

Basic Plot: 

Mrs. Legare has a devoted servant (former slave) named Venus. Johnny (Union soldier) meets Legare and befriends Venus at the start of the story and spends lots of time with her in the gardens and the kitchen before returning North.

When he returns after the war, he finds that the property has been taken by Baldwin, who we later learn, from Mrs. LeGare:

Baldwin refuses to let Venus pay the property tax, as she is not the owner (LeGare is away when the war taxes are due), and he buys the property out of spite. Venus puts a curse on him (only half of one, though, as her mother never taught her any full curses).

Despite the fact he isn't living on the property, Baldwin refuses all offers to buy the property back (from LeGare, Johnny, Venus), and eventually gets Yellow Fever. Despite his orders for LeGare to leave the property, she determines she will go nurse his family back to health. 

Venus goes in her place. She, of course, contracts the disease and dies, proclaiming it is her punishment for the "half a curse." Baldwin shows up on her funeral day to evict LeGare, but his heart is softened when she tells him it was Venus who nursed his family back from the brink of death. He gives the house back (no payment). 

​McMichael does a great job of summarizing some of the issues here:

• Originally appeared in Harper's Weekly, XXXI (January 15, 1887) and reprinted in Knitters in the Sun later that year.
• McMichael: "Combining the local dialect of the Clover Bend locale and portraits of poor-white sharecroppers, Alice wrote her first Arkansas story . . .it presented two departures from conventional American fiction; it was set in the Arkansas back country and its heroine was a feeble-minded child, Ma' Bowlin'" (p. 101).
• McMichael: "The story was noteworthy in its description of the customs, speech, and emotions of the tenant farmers, of their attitudes toward vengeance, death, God's punishment and His benevolence, and in its intense descriptions of the swamp" (p. 101). 
• Mrs. Brand tells Bud Quinn what for in this story and makes him realize his wife and daughter are important.

Basic Plot:

Bud Quinn and his wife Sukey live in Clover Bend. Bud was almost hanged on the day Ma' Bowlin' was born, as William Ruffner thought he had murdered his boy, Zed. Zed disappeared  eight years ago, and rumor was that Bud killed him and fed him to the hogs. Sukey saved him that day by reasoning with the men (hooded klansmen, it appears) that Bud didn't have a mark on him, and he would have if he'd killed Zed who was larger and stronger than he was.

The story opens with Mrs. Brand, a widow from Georgia, visiting Sukey as she finishes a new dress for Ma' Bowlin'. Sukey makes sure to instruct her daughter not to get the gown dirty, and the girl promises before setting out to the plantation store to meet her father to show him her new dress.  Bud arrives home alone, and a search party begins looking for the girl.

Bud was ashamed of Ma' Bowlin's feeble-mindedness and never cared for the child; upon seeing how upset Sukey is, though, he realizes he, too, loves Ma' Bowlin.' He goes searching for her, and he and Ruffner find her--and Zed.  The gown is clean and the family is reunited.

Interestingly, when she appears on Zed's boat, she's cured: