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UP IN MAINE

Stories of Yankee Life Told in Verse

By Holman F. Day

With an Introduction by C. E. Littlefield

Boston: Small, Maynard & Company

1900

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     TO MY FRIEND

     AND FELLOW IN THE CRAFT OF LETTERS

     WINFIELD M. THOMPSON

     TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED
     FOR MORE THAN ONE OF THE STORIES
     TOLD HEREIN

     THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED




PREFACE


               I don’t know how to weave a roundelay,

               I couldn’t voice a sighing song of love;

               No mellow lyre that on which I play;

               I plunk a strident lute without a glove.


               The rhythm that is running through my stuff

                   Is not the whisp of maiden’s trailing gown;

               The metre, maybe, gallops rather rough,

               Like river-drivers storming down to town.


               --It’s more than likely something from the

                        wood,

               Where chocking axes scare the deer and

                        moose;

               A homely rhyme, and easy understood

                   --An echo from the weird domain of Spruce.


               Or else it’s just some Yankee notion, dressed

                   In rough-and-ready “Uncle Dudley” phrase;

               Some honest thought we common folks suggest,

                   --Some tricksy mem’ry-flash from boyhood’s

                        days.


               I cannot polish off this stilted rhyme

                   With all these homely notions in my brain.

               A sonnet, sir, would stick me every time;

                   Let’s have a chat ’bout common things in

                        Maine.


                                  Holman F. Day.


|A_BOUT three thousand years ago the “Preacher” declared that  “of
making many books there is no end.” This sublimely pessimistic truism
deserves to be considered in connection with the time when it was
written; otherwise it might accomplish results not intended by its
author.

It must be remembered that in the “Preacher’s” time books were
altogether in writing. It should also be borne in mind that if the
handwriting which we have in these days, speaking of the period prior to
the advent of the female typewriter, is to be accepted as any criterion,
--and inasmuch as all concede that history repeats itself, that may
well be assumed,--is easy to understand how, by reason of its
illegibility, he was also led to declare that “much study is a weariness
of the flesh.” It is quite obvious that this was the moving cause of his
delightfully doleful utterance as to books. Had he lived in this year
nineteen hundred, at either the closing of the nineteenth or the dawning
of the twentieth century,--as to whether it is closing or dawning I
make no assertion,--he might well have made same criticism, but from an
optimistic standpoint.

A competent litterateur informs me that there are now extant
3,725,423,201 books; that in America and England alone during the last
year 12,888 books entered upon a precarious existence, with the faint
though unexpressed hope of surviving “life’s fitful fever!” If the
conditions of the “Preacher’s” time obtained to-day, the vocabulary of
pessimism would be inadequate for the expression of similar views.

A careful examination by the writer, of all these well-nigh innumerable
monuments of learning, discloses the fact that the work now being
introduced to what I trust may be an equally innumerable army of readers
has no parallel in literature. If justification were needed, that fact
alone justifies its existence. This fact, however, is not necessary, as
the all-sufficient fact which warrants the collection of these unique
sketches in book form is that no one can read them without being
interested, entertained, and amused, as well as instructed and improved.
“The stubborn strength of Plymouth Rock” is nowhere better exemplified
than on the Maine farm, in the Maine woods, on the Maine coast, or in
the Maine workshop. From them, the author of “Up in Maine” has drawn his
inspiration. Rugged independence, singleness of purpose, unswerving
integrity, philosophy adequate for all occasions, the great realities
of life, and a cheerful disregard of conventionalities, are here found
in all their native strength and vigor. These peculiarities as
delineated may be rough, perhaps uncouth, but they are characteristic,
picturesque, engaging, and lifelike. His subjects are rough diamonds.
They have the inherent qualities from which great characters are
developed, and out of which heroes are made.

Through every chink and crevice of these rugged portrayals glitters the
sheen of pure gold, gold of standard weight and fineness, “gold tried in
the fire.” Finally it should be said that this is what is now known as a
book with a purpose, and that purpose, as the author confidentially
informs me, is to sell as many copies as possible, which he confidently
expects to do. To this most worthy end I trust I may have, in a small
degree, contributed by this introduction._

C. LITTLEFIELD.

Washington, D.C., March 17,1900.




‘ROUND HOME




AUNT SHAW’S PET JUG


               Now there was Uncle Elnathan Shaw,

               --Most regular man you ever saw!

