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