Class picture Normal School (now SUNY Plattsburgh), 1892. Standing out, though sitting down, are the Baker twins, Blanche and Bertha, up front in stripped blouses. (Photo provided)

“To Blanche and Bertha Baker, from a profound admirer of them and their cats.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson

Such is the inscription inside a special copy of “A Child’s Garden of Verses” that came to our shores in a tea chest from England, bearing gifts for RLS to hand out at Christmas time, 1887. Blanche and Bertha were twins, 10 years of age, when the verse writer presented it to them in person. Unfortunately, this book did not stay at Baker’s; hopefully, it is still intact. It would be worth something with that inscription. The best place to start looking if you are a descendant of a Joseph H. Vincent, former Saranac Lake resident, would be in attics, basements, garages or storage facilities where his leftovers may be waiting to be discovered. Joseph Vincent was the widower of Bertha Baker and was not a friend of the Stevenson Society.

Vincent was still far off in the future for the Baker twins at Christmas time, 1887. They had two white cats. Some years later when the twins were students at Normal School (now SUNY Plattsburgh), Bertha wrote an essay in which she describes the scene in the third person: “At the time of Mr. Stevenson’s sojourn at this cottage there were two girls about ten years of age; the daughters of the owners of the house. Many thought they looked very much alike. Their main pleasure seemed to be gotten in company with their cats, and Stevenson would sit hour after hour, watching the four together. He made the girls many presents.”

Blanche and Bertha Baker had each her own autograph album. Blanche died in 1903, age 27, as the wife of Dr. Lee Sommerville, no children. Her mother, Mary, got to keep the autograph book. Today it can still be seen in a glass case next to their brother’s signed copy of “Treasure Island,” in the author’s former study under the southern gable of Baker’s, the “Hunter’s Home.” The book stays closed but a copy of the inscription next to it reads: “Train up a cat in the way she should go, and when she is old she will not depart from it.”

Bertha’s autograph album became Joseph H. Vincent’s property when she died in 1923. Possibly it is with the twins’ inscribed copy of “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” location unknown. “All cats are born free and equal,” is the tribute RLS wrote in Bertha’s book.

The above quoted essay is about the winter passed at Bertha’s home by a world-famous author. “Robert Louis Stevenson” is the title. More of it:

“The author cared little for company and made few acquaintances. Many hearing of the presence of the distinguished novelist would call upon him but Mr. Stevenson always declined seeing them, giving stress of work as his reason for so doing. Even well-known people would be turned away without an interview. He would often say, ‘I should think people would know that I am here for rest and do not care to be troubled,’ and to emphasize his statement, he would don his reefer coat and fur cap and go off over the fields on his snow shoes.

“He cared very little for driving and never accompanied the other members of the family on their sleighing excursions to the surrounding country; but he did like to skate, and perhaps a score of times during the winter he would cross the hills east of the cottage to a little lake (Moody Pond) nestled among the pine-clad hills. Walking over the fields with a stick in his hand and skates thrown over his shoulder he looked and seemed his happiest.

“The author, oftentimes, did not retire to his room until long after midnight. A breakfast of oatmeal, milk and toast was served to him in bed and he would delay his meal, now and then, to write upon the pad of paper resting before him on his knees.

“Mr. Stevenson was an inveterate smoker–he never smoked a pipe or cigar but always cigarettes, which he rolled himself (He was seldom without one of these and) at night his room would be clouded with smoke. Nor was he at all careful as to where he put the remaining portions (burnt ends) of the cigarettes, for he would throw them about upon chairs, floors or table. Ofttimes, indeed, tiny holes would be found burned in the bed clothing.

“Although Stevenson was not one of the greatest authors, yet there are characteristics of his writings which make them admired by many. Stevenson was hardly a poet, but some of the tiny poems in his Child’s Garden of Verses seem to impress one greatly … Mr. Stevenson wrote but one of his books at Saranac and this was The Master of Ballantrae. The cottage at which he stayed was transferred by him to scenes in this very interesting story … He left his Adirondack cottage for a journey to the South Seas Islands. There he resided until his death which occurred December 3rd eighteen hundred ninety four. He was laid to rest on the top of a steep mountain above his Samoan home. He wrote his own epitaph and it is on the stone slab at his head …” the one that starts with “Under the Wide and Starry Sky.”

As his fame grew, the first generation of Stevenson biographers got busy. One of them we know as “My dear Mr. Duncan” at the beginning of six letters that Bertha Baker wrote to him full of answers to Duncan’s questions via the postal service, questions in the context of Stevenson’s so-called Adirondack sojourn.

“Your letter was received some few days ago and papa asks me to answer it … I shall try to do so to the best of my ability. I have an old essay written during the winter of ’92 which I shall send you …

“A word in connection with Lloyd Osbourne. He did nearly all of Mr. S’s type writing while here at the house. Many who never saw Stevenson believed his stepson to be him. He was a very awkward person and unattractive, indeed. We all liked Mrs. Stevenson, the mother of the author, very much. She seemed more like an American than his wife (who was American), who was very quiet.”

Regarding the well published group photo on Baker’s veranda with dog: “The members of the family became fond of the dog but I was mistaken in saying that they took it away with them. They did not for the reason that they did not know definitely where they should go. The dog’s name was ‘Sport’ and was an ‘Irish Setter.’ The dog often went out with R.L.S. on his snow shoe journeys and S. seemed to be attached to him as well as the dog to his master.

“As to papa’s conversations with Stevenson. They did sit by the fireplace often and the subject of the conversation was generally the early history of the Adks., the changes which had taken place and the class of people visiting the ‘Mountains.’ He seemed greatly interested in the descriptions papa gave of his hunting trips, for at that time few came in search of health, but rather to hunt, fish, etc. Stevenson always seemed cheerful on all occasions.

“Stevenson wrote very regularly, indeed … The principal time was before he rose in the morning. He sometimes remained in bed the greater part of the forenoon.

“He skated up on ‘Moody Pond,’ directly back of the house. Always went alone, sometimes, however, accompanied by his dog … Stevenson seldom went driving or walking far from the house. To our knowledge, he never saw the Lower (Saranac) Lake or Lake Placid” (A separate account has RLS at Lower Saranac at least once, to visit his rich but down to earth friends, Mr. and Mrs. Ehrich of New York City, the original owners of “Pinehurst” overlooking Ampersand Bay.)

In this same letter we learn that a photographer known as Mr. Allen, took the photo in the collection on Stevenson Lane of artifact no. 101, the author’s inscription at the beginning of this article.

Next week: More previously unpublished and uncensored recollections of Bertha Baker, twin of Blanche.