Project Gutenberg's Oldtown Fireside Stories, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Oldtown Fireside Stories
The Ghost In The Mill; The Sullivan Looking-Glass; The
Minister's Housekeeper; The Widow's Bandbox; Captain Kidd's
Money; "Mis' Elderkin's Pitcher"; The Ghost In The Cap'n
Brownhouse

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Release Date: August 14, 2007 [EBook #22320]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES ***

Produced by David Widger

OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES.

By Harriet Beecher Stowe.

BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY

1872.

[Illustration: Titlepage]

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871

By James R. Osgood & Co.

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS:

THE GHOST IN THE MILL

THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS.

THE MINISTER'S HOUSEKEEPER.

THE WIDOW'S BANDBOX.

CAPTAIN KIDD'S MONEY.

"MIS' ELDERKIN'S PITCHER."

THE GHOST IN THE CAP'N BROWNHOUSE.

[Illustration: The Ghost in the Mill, page 001]

THE GHOST IN THE MILL

"Come, Sam, tell us a story," said I, as Harry and I crept to his knees,
in the glow of the bright evening firelight; while Aunt Lois was
busily rattling the tea-things, and grandmamma, at the other end of the
fireplace, was quietly setting the heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking.

In those days we had no magazines and daily papers, each reeling off
a serial story. Once a week, "The Columbian Sentinel" came from Boston
with its slender stock of news and editorial; but all the multiform
devices--pictorial, narrative, and poetical--which keep the mind of
the present generation ablaze with excitement, had not then even an
existence. There was no theatre, no opera; there were in Oldtown no
parties or balls, except, perhaps, the annual election, or Thanksgiving
festival; and when winter came, and the sun went down at half-past four
o'clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening to be provided
for, the necessity of amusement became urgent. Hence, in those days,
chimney-corner st