Resumen
Resumen de Moradores de Arcadia
Para quién es
Readers who love old houses, gardens, trout brooks and country neighbors will feel at home here, as will anyone who enjoys a funny, affectionate story of a family starting a new life.
De qué trata este libro
Dwellers in Arcady is a memoir by Albert Bigelow Paine, an American writer who died in 1937. It tells how he, his wife Elizabeth and their three daughters buy an abandoned farm in Brook Ridge, Connecticut, and spend twelve years making it a home. The book looks back on those years with humor and warmth, and it gives you the work, the neighbors and the seasons of a New England farm.
The farm costs nine hundred dollars and comes with a brook, a barn, a saltbox house with a seven foot fireplace, and an attic crammed with old treasures. Paine calls his daughters the Pride, the Hope and the Joy. He tells of whitewashers, brush cutters and plowmen, of a stubborn cow, a pair of hungry pigs and a flock of unwanted chickens. Along the way he reads old account books and learns local history from his neighbor William Westbury. Let us begin where the story begins, on a hill road in summer, with a broken harness strap and a first look at a brook.
En este resumen
- 1A brook, a saltbox house, an atticFree
- 2Neighbors who make the farm possible
- 3The family arrives and the past turns up
- 4Attic treasures and household mishaps
- 5Moving in, with smoke and pigs
- 6Account books and Thanksgiving
- 7Winter, gardens and a cast of helpers
- 8Cow, chickens and the golden summers
- 9Leaving the farm
Idea clave 1 de 9
A brook, a saltbox house, an attic
The book opens on a summer day about twelve years before it was written. A driver takes the author and Elizabeth up a hill road, and a broken trace stops them near a sagging old house. They wonder if their own house will look like that one. Then they reach a valley and meet William C. Westbury, who has the key.
Westbury points out a little cascade in a meadow and says it is the brook that runs through the farm. Paine has dreamed all his life of owning a brook, and he asks at once about trout. The farm is thirty one acres, more or less, with woods, a meadow and an orchard.
The house is a long roofed saltbox of hewn oak, old, with a frame that has stood for generations. The weatherboards are broken, the grass is high, and the place seems made for ghosts. Inside, the old kitchen has a fireplace seven feet wide, with a Dutch oven, and a ceiling so low that the tall author brushes the plaster.
The attic settles the matter. It holds four spinning wheels, a dozen black chairs, bandboxes, birdcages and chests, and Westbury says it all goes with the house. The price is first a thousand dollars, then nine hundred. That evening an old limping neighbor named Nat appears at dusk and warns Paine not to pay more than nine hundred. Paine, shaken, has already agreed to just that sum.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Moradores de Arcadia
What is Dwellers in Arcady about?
It is a memoir of a family that buys an abandoned farm in Brook Ridge, Connecticut, and spends twelve years restoring the house, planting gardens, and getting to know the neighbors and the land.
Who are the Pride, the Hope and the Joy?
They are the author's nicknames for his three daughters, aged twelve, seven and two when the family moves to the farm. Each has a personality, and the youngest imagines herself a horse.
Is Dwellers in Arcady a true story?
Paine tells it as his own experience, written about a dozen years after the family bought the farm. Some names are playful nicknames, and Westbury's tales are partly embroidered, as Paine says himself.
Who is William C. Westbury?
He is the neighbor who sells the family the farm and then helps with everything from workers to groceries. He knows every family in Brook Ridge and loves telling stories while he whittles.
Is Dwellers in Arcady easy to read?
Yes. The chapters are short, the language is plain, and the tone is chatty and funny. Each scene is a small story, so it is simple to read in short sittings.