“And so I am to write a story,” she said, “but of what and where? Shall it be radiant with the sky of Italy or eloquent with the beau idéal of Greece? Shall it breathe odor and languor from the Orient, or chivalry of the Occident; gaiety from France, or vigor from England? No, no; these are all too old, too romance-like, too obviously picturesque for me. No, let me turn to my own land—to my own New England; the land of bright fires and strong hearts; the land of deeds and not of words; the land of fruits and not of flowers; the land often spoken against yet always respected; ‘the latchet of whose shoes the nations of the earth are not worthy to unloose.’”
Having relieved her mind by this outburst of emotion, she apologizes for the bit of rodomontade, as she calls it, and proceeds to describe the Connecticut town that she was to picture under so many different names from the beginning to the end of her career—the beloved Litchfield-in-the-Hills, called in this story Newbury in New England. It rested in a green little hollow wedged in like a bird’s nest among the high hills that kept off the wind in winter and kept out foreigners. Here life was so perfect that the people never died, but only kept growing old till they could not grow any older and then they stood still and lasted from generation to generation. The houses in this village were red, brown, or yellow, and the people that lived there all had Biblical names. They did all the things they ought to do, lived in neighborly charity with one another, read their Bibles, feared God, and were content with such things as they had which the author said is the best philosophy after all. We are told that the hero is Master James Benton; the chief person in the story, however, is James’s old uncle, who afterwards gave a title to the story, “Uncle Tim.” Timothy Benton was a character photographed directly from life; he was suggested by Harriet’s own Uncle Lot Benton of New Haven, who was celebrated for that very contrariousness that is the queerness and the chief charm of the uncle in the story, who was just like a chestnut burr, briars without but substantial goodness within. The following incident from the story will illustrate this:
“‘Uncle Tim, father wants to know if you will lend him your hoe to-day?’” says a little boy, making his way across the corn-field.
“‘Why don’t your father use his own hoe?’
“‘Ours is broke.’
“‘Broke! How came it broke?’
“‘I broke it yesterday trying to hit a squirrel.’
“‘What business had you to be hittin’ squirrels with a hoe?’
“‘But father wants to borrow yours.’
“‘Why don’t he have that mended? It’s a great pester to have everybody usin’ a body’s things.’