Uncle Terry

by Charles Clark Munn

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III TWO ORPHANS A Stranger visiting Sandgate on a summer afternoon would inevitably conclude the town was asleep. Often not a person would be visible the entire length of its main street, cooled by three rows of maples, one dividing it, and one shading each of the two sidewalks formed of narrow strips of weather-stained marble. Under some of these trees that almost touch branches for half a mile one or two cows might be grazing or taking a siesta while chewing the cud of content. On the vine-hid porch of the village tavern landlord Pell would quite likely be dozing in an arm-chair tilted back, and across the way Mr. Hobbs, who keeps the one general store, would as likely be napping on a counter, his head pillowed upon a pile of calico. A little further up the street and near the one tallspired white church Mrs. Mears, the village gossip, may be sitting on the veranda of a small house almost hid by luxuriantly growing Norway spruce, and idly rocking while she chats with the widow Sloper, who livesthere, and whose mission in life is to cut and fit the best " go to meetin'" gowns of female Sandgate. Both dearly love to talk over all that's going on, and whether this or that village swain is paying especial attention to any one rosy cheeked lass, and if so "what's likely to come on't." Both mean well by this neighborly interest, and especially does Mrs. Sloper, who always advises plaits for stout women, " with middlin' fulness in the bust" for thin ones. One or two men may be at work haying in the broad meadows west of the village, through which the slow current of a small river twists and turns, or others wielding hoes on a hillside field of corn to the east, but so far as moving life in the village street goes there will be none. On either side of the Sandgate valle...

200 pages, Paperback

First published August 14, 2009

About the author

Charles Clark Munn (1848 - 1917) was reared on a farm and educated in a country school. He left the farm at 17 and became a commercial traveler for 30 years. He was the author of Pocket Island (1900), Uncle Terry-a Story of the Maine Coast (1900), Rockhaven (1902), The Hermit (1904), Boyhood Days on the Farm (1907), Myrtle Baldwin (1908), The Castle Builders (1910), The Heart of Uncle Terry (1915) and Camp Castaway (1916).

Reviews

[Majenta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another one I started a long time ago and set aside, and am glad I returned to and finished!

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Clark Munn, Uncle Terry: A Story of the Maine Coast (Lee and Shepard, 1900)

My entire family seems to suffer from the same malady; we are genetically unable to resist anything having to do with Maine. (In fact, I am the only member of my immediately family who does not, as of June of this year, live within twenty miles of Portland.) I stumbled upon a copy of this book some years ago at a used bookstore and, given the subtitle, I couldn't resist picking it up—but the edition I own in hardback is far too fragile for me to ever be able to consider reading it. Thus, when I discovered that a digital copy was living free of charge at Project Gutenberg, I was overjoyed, and I downloaded and dug in immediately.

If you're not used to books written before World War II, Uncle Terry has a number of the hallmarks of same. Most notable to the modern reader is there there is a much heavier focus on narration and description than there is in image and plot, which leads to a more leisurely reading experience. Don't get me wrong, there is a plot—though it might be more accurate to say that, in the way some novels focus less on a single protagonist than an ensemble cast, Uncle Terry has an ensemble plot, a weave of threads that has as its focus Albert and Alice Page, a struggling lawyer and his schoolmarm sister. Of course, Uncle Terry and his adopted daughter Telly feature in one, as does Albert's law partner, one of Alice's students, etc.
It's a nice enough stew, though pretty predictable given the average character complexity in a nineteenth-century novel (all the good guys are pure as pure can be, while all the bad guys have hearts of bleakest black, etc. etc.); certainly worth a look if you appreciate an author who can spin a good yarn and you don't mind lingering over the prose. ***

[Myra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly loved this vintage turn of the century story. I love pathos, and devotion, and solid good-hearted down-t0-earth characters. One of my favourite reads this year

[Prairieyesteryear · Rating 3 out of 5]

"To those who love to wander over green meadows, along mirthful brooks, or beneath forest trees where the birds dwell, or find content on lonely shores and music in the ocean's voice, this book is respectfully dedicated by the author."

I admit that I read this a couple years ago, and what stuck with me was not the story, but some of its moments:

I remember a grey windy walk through lonely grassy space with a somewhat simple-minded veteran, burdened with thoughts of what was the right thing to do with his current situation.

I remember a widow who, in her constant comment of her misery in scraping a subsistence living, was not a pleasant character to get to know, until I read her beautiful prayer that looked to God for beauty and rest in her days on earth and the days yet to come.

Such moments in this book touched my heart. I will have to revisit and come back to comment on the others I have forgotten.