The Project Gutenberg EBook of Homespun Tales, by Kate Douglas Wiggin

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: Homespun Tales

Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin

Posting Date: February 1, 2009 [EBook #3492]
Release Date: October, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMESPUN TALES ***

Produced by A Elizabeth Warren

HOMESPUN TALES

By Kate Douglas Wiggin

Introduction

These three stories are now brought together under one cover because
they have not quite outworn their welcome; but in their first estate
two of them appeared as gift-books, with decorative borders and wide
margins, a style not compatible with the stringent economies of
the present moment. Luckily they belong together by reason of their
background, which is an imaginary village, any village you choose,
within the confines, or on the borders of York County, in the State of
Maine.

In the first tale the river, not "Rose," is the principal character; no
one realizes this better than I. If an author spends her summers on
the banks of Saco Water it fills the landscape. It flows from the White
Mountains to the Atlantic in a tempestuous torrent, breaking here and
there into glorious falls of amber glimpsed through snowy foam; its
rapids dash through rocky cliffs crowned with pine trees, under which
blue harebells and rosy columbines blossom in gay profusion. There is
the glint of the mirror-like lake above the falls, and the sound of the
surging floods below; the witchery of feathery elms reflected in its
clear surfaces, and the enchantment of the full moon on its golden
torrents, never twice alike and always beautiful! How is one to forget,
evade, scorn, belittle it, by leaving its charms untold; and who could
keep such a river out of a book? It has flowed through many of mine
and the last sound I expect to hear in life will be the faint, far-away
murmur of Saco Water!

The old Tory Hill Meeting House bulks its way into the foreground of the
next story, and the old Peabody Pew (which never existed) has somehow
assumed a quasi-historical aspect never intended by its author. There
is a Dorcas Society, and there is a meeting house; my dedication assures
t