In a Dike Shanty
Maria Louise Pool
eBook
This volume was published in 1898 and is a picture of open-air life on the New England coast; consider it a series of pictures, one for each short chapter, held together by the little love affair of Leife and "Miss" Vance. Of the same general character as this author's "Tenting on Stony Beach," but written with more vigor and compactness. Each of the persons in this outing-sketch is strongly individualized, and an effective little love story is interwoven. The author has a certain hardness of tone which gives strength to her work. ....... Atlantic Monthly .............................................................................. An excerpt: A BAFFLING BIT OF PROPERTY We have come into possession of ninety -five acres, "more or less", of dike land, commonly mentioned simply as "dike". We did not buy it, and no one was so malicious as to leave it to us by will. We have taken it for debt. Now that we have it people seem to blame us as well as pity us; and yet we had to take this or nothing. A person living within sight of our shanty told us yesterday that the general opinion in the out- lyig community was that no one but a cursed fool would have taken that kind of property for debt; and that, as for its being that or nothing, it might better by a "darned sight be nothin". But we, in our ignorance, had an idea that any kind of property was better than no kind of property. It seems we were mistaken. It is too late, now, however, for any' regrets. We have gone on to the land in the company of two witnesses, and have "hereby taken possession", etc. and have the legal papers to show for it; also we have begun to pay taxes; and taxes, every one assures us, 'is the only thing the land will ever amount to"; every man we meet is advising, and condoling withus. Some of them take the fact solemnly; others begin to laugh when they see us, and they ask what are the dividends from the dike.