Priscilla Glenn lives in Kenmore, a place which the Canadian Indians call "the in-place, the place beyond the winds". There are so many traditions, so many things to be proud of, yet Priscilla is different. She dreams of living in the big city. Would she be able to fulfil her dream? If she does, would she leave her traditions behind or remember when she came from? The novel includes descriptions of the traditions and sprawling nature, of the people of Kenmore, and of Priscilla herself. Many people go far away from home to fulfil some or other dream, but home is always there. The novel is perfect for everybody, including fans of Gene Stratton Porter.
By : Harriet Theresa Comstock (1860 - 1925)
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The In-Place cannot be found; you must happen upon it! Hidden behind its rugged red rocks and hemlock-covered hills, it lies waiting for something to happen. It has its Trading Station, to and from which the Canadian Indians paddle their canoes—sometimes a dugout—bearing rare, luscious blue berries invitingly packed in small baskets with their own green leaves. And to the Station, also, go the hardy natives—good English, Scotch, or "Mixed"—with their splendid loads of fish.
"White fish go: pickerel come"—but always there is fish through summer days and winter's ice.
There is a lovely village Green, around which the modest homes cluster sociably. Poor, plain places they may be, but never dirty nor untidy. And the children and dogs! Such lovely babies; such human animals. They play and work together quite naturally and are the truest friends.
A little church, with a queer pointed spire and a beautiful altar, stands with open doors like a kindly welcome to all. Back of this, and apologetically placed behind its stockade fence, is the jail.
To have a jail and never need it! What more can be said of a community? But you are told—if you insist upon it—that the building is preserved as a warning, and if any one should by chance be forced to occupy it, "he will have the best the place affords"—for justice is seasoned with mercy in the In-Place.
If you would know the aristocracy of the hamlet you must leave the friendly Green and the pleasant water of the Channel, climb the red rocks, tread the grassy road between the hemlocks and the pines, and find the farms. For, be it understood, by one's ability to wrench a living from the soil instead of the water is he known and estimated. To fish is to gamble; to plant and reap is conservative business.
Dreamer's Rock and One Tree Island, Far Hill Place and Lonely Farm, safely sheltered they lie, and from them, in obedience to the "Lure of the States," comes now and again an adventurous soul to make his way, if so he may; and never was there a braver, truer wanderer than Priscilla of Lonely Farm. Equipped with a great faith, a straight method of thinking, and an ideal that never faded from her sight, she, by the help of the Poor Property Man, found her place and her work awaiting her. Love, she found, too—love that had to be tested by a man's sense of honour and a woman's determination, but it survived and found its fulfilment before the Shrine in the woods beyond Lonely Farm, where, as a little child, Priscilla had set up her Strange God and given homage to it.
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