PORT OF CHICAGO.
CHAPTER III.
THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY’S QUEER STORIES.
HE Folk-Lore Society which became a part of the Village Improvement Society in West Roxbury, used to have Story-Telling Nights, and on these occasions elderly people were invited to attend and relate old village stories. The Folk-Lore story is a very interesting department of Folk-Lore; and of all places in America, the towns that follow the windings of the Charles River, are rich in quaint old tales. The Brook Farm-House, now the German Orphan Asylum, sent into the world a coterie of magic story-tellers. The old houses around the Dedham Woods all have their legends. West Roxbury and the Newtons are haunted places.
Among the popular subjects of this antique story-telling, are “The Old New England Ghost Story,” and “Funny Tales of Old Independence Days.”
There were several of these stories that were particularly popular. One of them was the reading of that masterpiece of old wonder-books, known as “The Devil and Tom Walker,” a warning to usurers, speculators, and all over-reaching people.
GOVERNMENT BUILDING.