Strange New England

Elbert Stevens owned a sawmill in Bridgewater Corners, Vermont at the turn of the last century. His people had been in the area for time out of mind and he was known as a man who, like the bedrock that makes up the state, was solid, strong, and in a word, reliable.  He was also a keeper of things, never one to discard anything that might be of use later, a habit practiced by many folks of his age and caliber. You never know when you might need something later - usually after you threw it out the year before. Such people kept things, just in case. One of those possessions was a scrapbook, a place to glue the memorable tidbits of news and marginalia found in the papers and almanacs read during those long Vermont winter evenings when the wind howled outside the door like wolves. He hadn’t started the scrapbook - it had merely been handed down to him from a family member long gone, but he held it as something precious for within those pages was something incredible and truly fantastic, a tale told by lamp