Joyce of the North Woods   By: Harriet T. (Harriet Theresa) Comstock (1860-)

JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS

BY

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK

AUTHOR OF JANET OF THE DUNES, TOWER AND THRONE, THE QUEEN'S HOSTAGE, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN CASSEL

GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

TO

EVELINA HEMINWAY SMITH

"SISTER FRIEND"

Accept the dedication of this book of mine as a very slight recognition of your encouragement in my work; your faith in me.

To you I first read the story; from you I received my first approval; I believe its chances will be brighter in the book world if your name and good will go with it.

HARRIET T. COMSTOCK

Flatbush Brooklyn, N. Y. February, 1910

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I 3 CHAPTER II 24 CHAPTER III 46 CHAPTER IV 65 CHAPTER V 78 CHAPTER VI 98 CHAPTER VII 111 CHAPTER VIII 134 CHAPTER IX 154 CHAPTER X 177 CHAPTER XI 198 CHAPTER XII 212 CHAPTER XIII 231 CHAPTER XIV 251 CHAPTER XV 273 CHAPTER XVI 301 CHAPTER XVII 312 CHAPTER XVIII 334 CHAPTER XIX 350 CHAPTER XX 369

PREFATORY NOTE

"Love is the golden bead in the bottom of the crucible." And the crucible was St. Angé.

Fifty years before this story began, St. Angé was a lumber camp; the first gash in that part of the great Solitude to the north, which lay across Beacon Hill, three miles from Hillcrest.

When the splendid lumber had been felled within a prescribed limit, Industry took another leap, left St. Angé scarred and blighted, with a fringe of forest north and south, and struck camps farther back and nearer Canada.

Then Nature began to heal the stricken heart of the Solitude. A second growth of lovely tree and bush sprang to the call, and the only reminders of the camp were the absences of the men during the logging season, and the roaring and rushing of the river through Long Meadow every spring, with its burden of logs from the distant camps.

In the beginning St. Angé had had her aspirations. A futile highway had been constructed, for no other purpose apparently, than to connect the north and south forests. A little church had been built there had never been any regular service held in it and a small school house which promptly degenerated into the Black Cat Tavern, General Store, and Post Office. A few modest houses met the highway face to face; a few more turned their backs upon it and were content with an outlook across Long Meadow and toward Beacon Hill, beyond which lay the village of Hillcrest which grew in importance as St. Angé degenerated. There were scattered houses among the clumps of maple and pine growths, and there was a forlorn railroad station before which a rickety, single track branch ended. Sometime during the day a train came in, and after an uncertain period it departed; it was the only link with the outer world that St. Angé had except what came by way of Hillcrest.