Project Gutenberg's The Place Beyond the Winds, by Harriet T. Comstock

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Title: The Place Beyond the Winds

Author: Harriet T. Comstock

Illustrator: Harry Spafford Potter

Release Date: June 2, 2006 [EBook #18488]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "It was a beautiful thing, that dance, grotesque, pagan
and yet divine"]

THE PLACE BEYOND THE WINDS

BY HARRIET T. COMSTOCK

_Illustrated by_
HARRY SPAFFORD POTTER

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1914

FOREWORD

The In-Place cannot be found; you must happen upon it! Hidden behind its
rugged red rocks and hemlock-covered hills, it lies waiting for something
to happen. It has its Trading Station, to and from which the Canadian
Indians paddle their canoes--sometimes a dugout--bearing rare, luscious
blue berries invitingly packed in small baskets with their own green
leaves. And to the Station, also, go the hardy natives--good English,
Scotch, or "Mixed"--with their splendid loads of fish.

"White fish go: pickerel come"--but always there is fish through summer
days and winter's ice.

There is a lovely village Green, around which the modest homes cluster
sociably. Poor, plain places they may be, but never dirty nor untidy. And
the children and dogs! Such lovely babies; such human animals. They play
and work together quite naturally and are the truest friends.

A little church, with a queer pointed spire and a beautiful altar,
stands with open doors like a kindly welcome to all. Back of this, and
apologetically placed behind its stockade fence, is the jail.

To have a jail and never need it! What more can be said of a community?
But you are told--if you insist upon it--that the building is preserved
as a warning, and if any one should by chance be forced to occupy it, "he
will have the best the place affords"--for justice is seasoned with mercy
in the In-Place.

If you would know the aristocracy of the hamlet you must leave the
friendly Gre