Daniel Plainway - Or The Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League

by Van Reid

  Add to these the town historians whose works fortify the State Library and the writers (many anonymous) who contributed to the newspapers and almanacs of the day.

  It hardly needs to be said that any errors or magnifications in the annals of the Moosepath League are purely my own.

  Continued thanks to my agent Barbara Hogenson and her assistant Nicole Verity, as well as Jody Lipper. Continued good wishes, also, to Sarah Feider. Thanks to everyone at Viking Penguin who has worked on Cordelia, Mollie, and Daniel, including of course my editor Carolyn Carlson, and her assistant Lucia Watson, publicist Linda McFall and her assistant Hillary Thompson, and designer Jesse Reyes. Best wishes, also, to Michael Driscoll.

  This past season I was a guest at numerous bookstores and in particular I would like to thank the folks at Port in a Storm in Somesville; Sherman’s in Boothbay and Freeport; Bookland in Brunswick and South Portland; the Kennebunk Book Port in Kennebunkport; Thomaston Books & South Hadley, Massachusetts; Borders in Framingham; Bickerton and Prints; Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont; Odyssey Bookstore in Ripley in Edgartown; and the Owl and the Turtle in Camden.

  Most especially, thanks to Jane and Mark Bisco, Susan and Barnaby Porter, Penny and Ewing Walker, Pat and Clark Boynton, Joanne Cotton, Devon Sherman, Johanna Rice, Frank Slack, Hester Stuhlman, and Trudy Price and all my friends at the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta.

  Thanks to the Georgetown Historical Society and the Damariscotta-Newcastle Rotary Club.

  Thanks to everyone who has communicated by mail their interest and encouragement. I hope that all you folks who have written from other parts of the country come to Maine soon, and please drop by and say hello at the Maine Coast Book Shop.

  Regards and appreciation go out again to Michael Uhl, Nick Dean, and Jim Nelson.

  Thanks to family and friends, and a terrific set of in-laws for their abiding support and good thoughts.

  If all my efforts were to be dedicated to a single person, it would be to Margaret Hunter-Maggie-scientist, wife, mother, first-line editor of the Moosepath Chronicles, and patient sounding board for bouts of authorial angst. She does all these things well, rarely complains about being married to a writer, and remains an island of calm throughout. As growing codicils (if you will) to this dedication, may I add Hunter and Mary, who help keep things in perspective with laughter, innocence, and unbounded curiosity.

  The injunction to the writer is often to “write about what you know,” and I have done so. The historical context, of course, is equal parts research and intuition, the geographical context is my home, the human context is my life. I have been blessed to know people who are as good and kind and wise as some of those in this book and its companion volumes. I am grateful, then, that I can write about what I know and in the process write about the generosity of spirit, the strength of compassion, and the gladness of laughter that I have endeavored to exemplify in Mister Walton, Sundry Moss, and the members of the Moosepath League.