Homespun Tales | Page 3

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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 the reader of these indubitable facts; and the Dorcas
Society, in a season of temporary