 A Real New England Girl by Anna I. Parsons 1. The Shower 2. Oxford County 3. The Stranger and the Girl 4. The Youth and the Girl 5. Pansy and Richard Go Trading 6. The Marvelous Storyteller 7. The Dinner 8. The The Minister Comes for Tea 9. Pansy's Father 10. Pansy and Her Mother 11. Poland Springs 12. The Birthday Cake 13. Ned Patterson Comes for a Visit 14. The Blue Berrying Party 15. The Beginning of Wisdom 16. The Tempted and the Penitent 17. The Concert 18. Stanley's Ride 19. The Bench by the Wayside 20. The Banker and the Widow 21. The Bag of Nuts 22. How They Kept Thanksgiving at Little Farm 23. Hardly a Merry Christimas 24. A Call Down and a Caller 25. The Pride of Mrs. Bradford 26. A Happy New Year 27. Amusement and Winter Sport 28. Kim 29. Richard, the Lion Hearted 30. A Tour of the White Mountains 31. Talking Over the Trip with Henry Bright 32. Thoughts That Lie Too Deep for Words 33. Economics 34. His Toast 35. The Busy Haunts of Man 36. Christmas in New York 37. The Last Night of Their Visit 38. The Language Understood by All 39. Sugaring Off 40. Correspondence 41. Commencement 42. Conclusion Afterward     |
Oxford County "O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land." --Byron Oxford County abounds in high hills and mountains of low altitude, forests of coniferous and deciduous trees, silver lakes and streams, farm land divided into fields and pastures by a concatenation of stone walls, small villages, and beautiful aspects of nature. Less than fifty miles away the famous White Mountains raise their lofty heads, and when the caps of snow which cover them a greater part of the year are removed, they glisten blue or purple in the distance, as the great fleecy clouds which float through heaven lessen or deepen the shadows thrown across them. On rare June days, when the sun at or near its summer solstice, has lifted the vapor and left the air wonderfully pellucid, the Tip Top House on Mount Washington can be seen with the naked eye. Then the busy housewife leaves her domestic toil and joins with her husband and children in feasting her eyes and exulting on the broad expanse of earth and sky brought within her ken. The sunset hour is another period of uplift and rejoicing, for one cannot look from any of the Oxford hills into the great and gorgeous west and at these same White Mountains, now bathed in crimson and gold, without deeply feeling the wonderful loveliness and mystery of it all. Here you will find true sons and daughters of those Anglo-Saxons who, from love of nature, chose to encounter the dangers of rural life in England rather than bide a home in a walled city, such as their Roman predecessors had inhabited. These people are sometimes said to be cold and unresponsive, but this is only outward appearance. If one probes deep enough, he will find their pent up natures have all the fire of the volcano; they are merely not demonstrative. They are sometimes outspoken almost to rudeness, but as dependable as the mountains themselves. Environment helps in molding character, and theirs is rugged, though fraught with beauty on every hand. Their Puritan ancestors taught and practiced simplicity, and from this they have not altogether departed though the great fashionable world come and knock at their doors and display rich treasures and rare luxuries gathered in every city and clime. Their standard of judging a man is not by what he has, but by what he knows, and the many excellent schools located here attest that education is given paramount thought. Their quota of representative men have been of that high order which has made Maine known in political circles as a state of splendid statesmen. The Yankee has been accused of many shortcomings, but for clean, wholesome home life, for thrift in agriculture, for love of education, and attachment to church and state, there is no better adherent than the Yankee known as the "Oxford County Bear." The Bradford family of whom I write descended from a line of ancestors who had early settled in the Oxford hills and who by their perseverance, industry and patriotism had helped to make the history of the county. Click Here for Chapter 3 |