ON THE EASTMAN HILL CROSS-ROAD.

PREFACE

No one person can fitly describe a neighborhood,no matter how long known, how wellloved. Yet records of what is lovely and ofgood report in a district should be treasuredand preserved, however imperfectly.

My father’s name, not mine, should rightlybe signed to these pages, for it is his intimateknowledge of our countryside, loved and exploredwith a boy’s ardor and a naturalist’sinsight since childhood, which they strive toset down.

I have taken care to write almost whollyof two or more generations ago, and of personswho, with few exceptions, have nowpassed out of this life; and I have in all casesaltered names, and shifted families from onepart of the county to another, to avoid possibleannoyance to surviving connections. Ithas even seemed best in some cases—thoughI have done so with reluctance—to change thenames of villages, of hills and streams, aswell.

Beyond this, I have striven only to recordfaithfully the anecdotes and memories thathave come down to me. But no record, howeverfaithful, can be in any way adequate.The rays will be refracted by the medium ofthe writer’s personality; and the best that canbe done will be but a small mirrored fragment,before the daily repeated miracle ofthe living reality.

CONTENTS