ith "n't" which appeared
inordinately distracting to the modern reader.

R. McGowan, San Jose, March 1997

THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER

Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these stories were
written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was so close to you, who
can tell from whence the thoughts came? I only know that when all the
other trees in the orchard were barren, there were always stories to be
found under your branches, and so it is our joint book, dear apple-tree.
Your pink blossoms have fallen on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit
has dropped into my lap; the sunshine streamed through your leaves and
tipped my pencil with gold. The birds singing in your boughs may have
lent a sweet note here and there; and do you remember the day when the
gentle shower came? We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky
all cried together while we wrote "The Fore-Room Rug."

It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! it is not
altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, and because I have
strayed farther away from the heart of Mother Nature.

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

"Quillcote," Hollis, Maine, August 12, 1895.

CONTENTS.

The Village Watch-Tower 1
Tom o' the Blueb'ry Plains 31
The Nooning Tree 55
The Fore-Room Rug 95
A Village Stradivarius 123
The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry 195

THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER.

It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its
weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the
very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the
window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions
when he brought "old Mis' Bascom" a parcel from Saco.

Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful in the
springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the great stone
steps; or in the summer, when the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful
shadow over the front door. The elm, indeed, was the only object that
ever did cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her "front door 'n'
entry never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin' to keep
it nice for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up."

She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. Her high-backed
rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch and