Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks / A Picture of New England Home Life

B o s t o n C. M. CLARK PUBLISHING COMPANY 1 9 0 5
Respectfully dedicated to the Memory of the late HON JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL the perusal of whose f a m o u s p o e m T h e C o u r t i n supplied the inspiration that led to the writing of this book.


only title was plain Mr. His ancestors were tradesmen, merchants, lawyers, politicians, and Presidents. He, too, was proud of his honored ancestry, and I have endeavored in this book to have him live up to an ideal personification of gentlemanly qualities for which the New England standard should be fully as high as that of Old England; in fact, I see no reason why the heroes of American novels, barring the single matter of hereditary titles, should not compare favorably as regards gentlemanly attributes with their English cousins across the seas.
C.F.P.
Gray Chambers, Boston, October, 1902.




It was a little after seven o'clock on the evening of December 31, 186—. Inside, the little red schoolhouse was ablaze with light. Sounds of voices and laughter came from within and forms could be seen flitting back and forth through the uncurtained windows. Outside, a heavy fall of snow lay upon hill and vale, trees and house-tops, while the rays of a full-orbed moon shone down upon the glistening, white expanse.