The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

... I always think of her as of one who, hearing New England accused of being a bleak land without beauty, passes confidently over the snow, and by the gray rock, and past the dark fir tree, to a southern bank, and there, brushing away the decayed leaves, triumphantly shows to the faultfinder a spray of the trailing arbutus. And I should like, for my own part, to add this: that the fragrant, retiring, exquisite flower, which I think she would say is the symbol of New England virtue, is the symbol also of her own modest and delightful art.

From The Art of Miss Jewett, by Charles

Miner Thompson, in the Atlantic for October, 1904

CONTENTS

Preface by Willa Cather[ix]
I.The Return[1]
II.Mrs. Todd[3]
III.The Schoolhouse[11]
IV.At the Schoolhouse Window[15]
V.Captain Littlepage[20]
VI.The Waiting Place[31]
VII.The Outer Island[42]
VIII.Green Island[48]
IX.William[66]
X.Where Pennyroyal Grew[72]
XI.The Old Singers[80]
XII.A Strange Sail[86]
XIII.Poor Joanna[98]
XIV.The Hermitage[115]
XV.On Shell-Heap Island[127]
XVI.The Great Expedition[134]
XVII.A Country Road[144]
XVIII.The Bowden Reunion[156]
XIX.The Feast’s End[175]
XX.Along Shore[184]
XXI.A Dunnet Shepherdess[207]
XXII.The Queen’s Twin[242]
XXIII.William’s Wedding[279]
XXIV.The Backward View[300]

PREFACE

But give to thine own story