At the turn of the century, before the advent of movies and radio, the most widely read family magazine in America was The Youth's Companion, and C. A. Stephens was indisputably its most popular writer. Over a period of 55 years, he contributed more than 1,500 stories, but the stories that gained the most fervent readership were fictionalized versions of his recollections of growing up on a small farm in New England.