Howard Pyle, a chronicle by Charles D. Abbott, with an introduction by N. C. Wyeth and many illustrations from Howard Pyle's works.

HOWARD PYLE: A CHRONICLE
boomed across the sands. Much in keeping with Howard
Pyle's sturdy Americanism seems the little ceremony so
carefully performed..00
"On a day in late July there appeared at the door of the
clergyman's cottage one of the numerous pickaninnies that
swarmed about the kitchen doors of Rehoboth cottages,
playing amicably with the children of the establishment,
while their mothers cooked marvelous dishes within or
ironed white petticoats on the latticed porch. This impish
messenger carried a note-nay, rather, a magic spell-that
was to transform a commonplace Monday into a day forever
marked with a white stone. And the spell read, tamely
enough, 'Mr. and Mrs. Howard Pyle request the pleasure
of Miss Hero-Worshipping Seventeen's company on Thursday evening, July 2ist, at 8 o'clock.' The word 'Cards'
appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the note..00
"Euchre was the game in vogue in those simple days.
And every evening before the 'grand event was spent by the
excited girl in practising with the aid of a sympathetic
clergyman host, so that she might not mix up the right and
left bower, or be puzzled as to the proper moment for
trumping a partner's ace. Even- more anxiously than she
studied her game did. she regard her face in the mirror, a
plain little face, rendered none the more attractive by a
sunburn that sturdily resisted all the blandishments of cold
cream.
",Of what happened Thursday she has a confused memory
rather than a clear picture. There were lots of 'young men
and maidens, old men and children,' for such affairs at
Rehoboth were by no means sophisticated in tone. She
played cards automatically, conscious all the while of a big,
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