Partners of the Tide. Cap’n Ezra Titcomb and young Bradley Nickerson go into the wrecking business and meet with a series of surprising adventures and difficulties.
Cy Whittaker’s Place. Old Cy Whittaker, bachelor, adopted a little girl. He and an old crony form a “Board of Strategy” for her upbringing.
Keziah Coffin. Keziah Coffin, typical Cape Cod old maid, proves the good angel of the minister in his courtship. Incidentally, she turns out not to be incurably an old maid.
The Postmaster. Cap’n Zeb Snow is discontented with inactivity after retiring from the sea. As postmaster he finds all the activity he wants.
Thankful’s Inheritance. Thankful Barnes and her helper Emily lose their boarders when the house proves to be “ha’nted,” but they gain a Cape Cod sea captain and also a handsome young lawyer—for life.
“Shavings.” The quaint, unbusinesslike windmill-maker has no success in posing as a bank robber, but his loyalty and shrewdness bring happiness to all his friends.
The Portygee. The temperament and “calf love” of the son of a Spanish opera singer make difficulties with his Yankee grandfather.
vi
No plots, only complications; but there must be admitted to be, within somewhat narrow bounds, a considerable display of “characters.” Although even here certain stock figures are (probably necessarily) much employed—the gossiping old maid, Mis’ Somebody-or-Other; the village comedian, like Henry Ward Beecher Payson, who periodically lapses from good behaviour and goes on sprees. One of the most interesting of Lincoln’s portrayals is Albert in The Portygee, a young fellow half Spanish, half New Englander, with poetic and artistic impulses. “Set there in the small hamlet, chafing at the restraints and humdrumness of the place, Albert makes a delicious contrast to the native population,” says Hildegarde Hawthorne. “We understand the passionate, temperamental boy as well as his old Grandfather, with his fury against all that sort of ‘foolishness,’ because their author understands them.” I cannot go so far as Hildegarde Hawthorne in praise of the variety or depth of Mr. Lincoln’s characters, while cheerfully granting, as I do, their frequent colour and whimsical charm. Often and inevitably, I suppose, in the work of one who has written two dozen books the “characters” are not character, but a selected idiosyncrasy or two. Often and inevitably in the case of one who is not the inexhaustible and fecund creator, like Dickens.
But there is the humour....