Chapter I: Preface

No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood, no matter how long known, how well loved. Yet records of what is lovely and of good report in a district should be treasured and preserved, however imperfectly.

My father's name, not mine, should rightly be signed to these pages, for it is his intimate knowledge of our countryside, loved and explored with a boy's ardor and a naturalist's insight since childhood, which they strive to set down.

I have taken care to write almost wholly of two or more generations ago, and of persons who, with few exceptions, have now passed out of this life; and I have in all cases altered names, and shifted families from one part of the county to another, to avoid possible annoyance to surviving connections. It has even seemed best in some cases--though I have done so with reluctance--to change the names of villages, of hills and streams, as well.

Beyond this, I have striven only to record faithfully the anecdotes and memories that have come down to me. But no record, however faithful, can be in any way adequate. The rays will be refracted by the medium of the writer's personality; and the best that can be done will be but a small mirrored fragment, before the daily repeated miracle of the living reality.

CONTENTS

- PREFACE
- CHAPTER I--A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE
- CHAPTER II--THE RIVER
- CHAPTER III--THE BANKS OF THE RIVER
- CHAPTER IV--THE CAPTAINS
- CHAPTER V--BY THE ACUSHTICOOK
- CHAPTER VI--SPRING
- CHAPTER VII--THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD
- CHAPTER VIII--RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS
- CHAPTER IX--MARY GUILFOYLE
- CHAPTER X--TRESUMPSCOTT POND
- CHAPTER XI--IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS
- CHAPTER XII--HARVEST
- CHAPTER XIII--WATSON'S HILL
- CHAPTER XIV--EARLY WINTER.
- CHAPTER XV--ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON
- CHAPTER XVI--OUR TOWN

Thanks are due Mr. Bertrand H. Wentworth of Gardiner, Maine, for his very kind permission to illustrate this book with reproductions of his photographs.

ILLUSTRATIONS

ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD
THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE
INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER'S COURSE
THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH
THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE
PLOUGHING MARY'S FIELD
ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND
THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES
THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS
THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES
LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS
ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY
THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT

A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE