Pine Tree Ballads: Rhymed Stories of Unplaned Human Natur' up in Maine

TO THE HONORABLE JOHN ANDREW PETERS, LL.D. FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MAINE I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME IN MEMORY OF MANY YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP AND IN SINCERE APPRECIATION OF THE JURIST AND WIT WHO HAS IN ALL DIGNITY EVER TURNED A SMILING FACE TOWARD HIS MAINE THAT HAS SMILED LOVINGLY BACK AT HIM
CONTENTS

|T HESE are plain tales of picturesque character-phases in Maine Yankeedom from the Allegash to the ocean. These are the men whose hands are blistered by plow-handle and ax, or whose calloused palms are gouged by the trawls. Their heads are as hard as the stones piled around their acres. Their wit is as keen as the bush-scythes with which they trim their rough pastures. But their hearts are as soft as the feather beds in their spare-rooms.
The frontispiece to this volume is from a photograph of “Uncle Solon” Chase, the widely known sage of Chase’s Mills in Andros-coggin county.
In Greenback days he won national fame as “Them Steers” and his quaint sayings have traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There is no man in Maine who better typifies the homespun humor, honesty, and intelligence of Yankeedom. The picture opposite page 126 is from a photograph of the late Ezra Stephens of Oxford county, famed years ago as “the P. T. Barnum of Maine.” He originated the dancing turkey, the wonderful bird that appears in the story of “Ozy B. Orr.”
In another picture is shown “Jemimy” at her old loom and beside her are the swifts and the spinning wheel. The pictures illustrating “Elkanah B. Atkinson” (a poem commemorating a real episode in the life of Barney McGonldrick of Cherry field Tavern) and “John W. Jones” are character studies that will appeal to those who are acquainted with Maine rural life.
The thanks of the author and of the publish-ers are due to The Saturday Evening Post of Philadelphia, The Youth’s Companion, Ainslee’s Magazine, and Everybody’s Magazine, for permission to include in this volume verses which originally appeared in their columns, copyrighted by them.