A WORD OF EXPLANATION. It is with some hesitation that I offer to the public this story of Doctor LeBaron, including, as it does, so many other of the Old Colony chronicles and this, for the trite old reason that truth is stranger than fiction, and therefore more incredible. It is these incredible truths, however, that give its color to the folk-lore of any given epoch, and every student of our country s early history has discovered that our forefathers lived quite as intensely, if not as scientifically, as we do. They had, to be sure, no railway accidents, steamboat explo quot quot sions, or tramp-wire catastrophes, but they supped full of horrors in the way of witchcraft, cursing, demo niacal possession, murder, lawless love, and broken hearts in fact, found in their own surroundings all that vital stimulus which we are apt to count as outgrowth of our advanced civilization. The story of Mother Crewe s curse, with its results, is substantially true, and the scene depicted in chapter xliv. is literally so. The tragedy embodied in chapter xxiv. is also mat ter of history, and its veracity must apologize for its horror. In fact, there is no memorable incident related in these pages that is not matter either of history or well- founded tradition in the Old Colony, and though our modern taste may revolt at the crude coloring and real istic limning of these pictures of the past, we must piously preserve them as the shadows of those who, be ing dead, yet speak, and that in the language of their own day rather than ours. I also think it right to say that Quasho s jokes, al though many of them are threadbare now, were posi tively original with him, as authenticated by the family of his master.In parting, letme thank those friends who have taken so gratifying an interest in the story of Standish of Standish, and promise them some farther details of his life in connection with that of his young friend, BETTY AXDEN. BOSTON, November, 1890. JANE G. AUSTIN. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE quotDON I. T BE IN A HURRY, WIDOW n . . . . 1 II. SILVER-HEAD TOM 8 III. BATHSHEBA CREWE S LOVER 18 IV. JUDAS 28 V. THE DOCTOR S DEN 37 VI. THE LASS THAT LOVED A SAILOR .... 57 VII. MOTHERCREWE S CURSEANDELDER FAUNCE S BLESSING 65 VIII. A LIFE FOR A LEMON 76 IX. QUASHO S CALABASH 86 X. MOTHER CREWE AT WORK AND HOW TO MAKE CHEESE-CAKES 93 XI. MOTHER CREWE is PLEASED 101 XII. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE Ill XIII. A TRAP 123 XIV. LUCY HAMMATT S SUFFLET 128 XV. THE KING is DEAD LONG LIVE THE KIWG . 138 XVI. MARGOT XVII. quotWHO quot SALTED THIS PUDDING XVIII. AN ACADIAN PRIVATEER 147 155 165 XIX. SAMSON IN PETTICOATS 172 XX. PHILIP DE MONTARNAUD 183 XXI. NAUGHTY LITTLE DEBORAH 193 XXII. THE INDIAN SUMMER AND OBERRY .... 200 XXIII. THE PRICE OF A WOMAN XXIV. A SCENE OF HORROR 209 221 XXV. THE LETTER 227 XXVI...