A Northern Countryside

by Rosalind Richards

ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.

A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE

By

ROSALIND RICHARDS

Illustrated from photographs

by

BERTRAND H. WENTWORTH

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916

Copyright, 1916

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Published April, 1916

THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS

RAHWAY, N. J.

To

J. R., L. E. W., and L. T. S.,

without whose help this small record

could not have been written.

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

CHAPTER		PAGE
	PREFACE	[v]
I	A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE	[3]
II	THE RIVER	[12]
III	THE BANKS OF THE RIVER	[25]
IV	THE CAPTAINS	[40]
V	BY THE ACUSHTICOOK	[53]
VI	SPRING	[63]
VII	THE EASTMAN HILL CROSSROAD	[72]
VIII	RIDGEFIELD, AND WEIR'S MILLS	[82]
IX	MARY GUILFOYLE	[94]
X	TRESUMPSCOTT POND	[103]
XI	IN THE TRESUMPSCOTT WOODS	[112]
XII	HARVEST	[131]
XIII	WATSON’S HILL	[141]
XIV	EARLY WINTER	[157]
XV	ASSIMASQUA, AND MARSTON	[171]
XVI	OUR TOWN	[188]

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	Frontispiece
	FACING PAGE
THE WOODS JUT OUT IN ISLANDS ROUND AN OUTCROPPING LEDGE	[6]
INTERVALE ALONG THE RIVER’S COURSE	[56]
THE SOUTH WIND IN MARCH	[64]
THE PEACEFUL, PRETTY HAMLET OF UPPER BRIDGE	[88]
PLOUGHING MARY’S FIELD	[96]
ON TRESUMPSCOTT POND	[103]
THE TRANQUIL WOODS COVER THE RISE AND FALL OF THE RIDGES	[121]
THE CORN WAS STANDING AMONG THE GOLDEN PUMPKINS IN STACKS THAT LOOKED LIKE HUDDLED WITCHES	[138]
LONGFELLOW POND LIES IN THE HOLLOW OF THE WOODS	[154]
ICE-CUTTING ON THE RIVER BEGINS IN JANUARY	[162]
THE WIND CARVES OUT WAVE-LIKE SHAPES OF DRIFT	[181]

A NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE