The House of the Black Ring

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Note on the Publication History James L. W. West III

The House of the Black Ring

Preface to the 1916 Edition

I. The Affair at Tressler’s Farm

II. Where the Devil Treads, Who Looks for Snow?

III. Rose Hartswick

IV. The Wooing at Hartswick Hall

V. The Horse-Racing on Moon Run

VI. The Windy Side of the Law

VII. The Flitting Dinner

VIII. The Firing of Heller’s Cabin

IX. The Fire on Cherry Creek

X. The Mill Down Foaming Valley

XI. Lona Heller

XII. The Play and the Chorus

XIII. The Pow-wowing at Roaring Run

XIV. In the Wild Azalea

XV. The Murder in Sugar Valley

XVI. The Mob at Heller’s Gap

XVII. The Hour of the Powers of Darkness

XVIII. In the Heart of the Limestone

XIX. The Last of the Hartswicks

XX. The Revenge of Matthew Heller

Notes

Bibliography

“Editors Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Joshua Brown not only reproduce a highly entertaining regional story in The House of the Black Ring but also contribute to vital local color and Pennsylvania German studies. Fred Lewis Pattee’s ‘haunting’ style and romantic viewpoint compare interestingly with the work of other writers of Pennsylvania Dutch local color, such as Helen Riemensnyder Martin and Elsie Singmaster.

Pattee’s novel questions the meaning of ‘home’ among turn-of-the-century America’s expanding multicultural population. As an ‘outlander’—a native New Englander living among the Pennsylvania Dutch—Pattee’s personal sense of otherness adds a poignant twist to his portrayal of his ethnic neighbors. Fascinatingly, the over one-hundred-year-old story voices a topic relevant to American society today: the search for ‘belonging’ among a diverse and dynamic people.”

—Susan Colestock Hill, author of Heart Language: Elsie Singmaster and Her Pennsylvania German Writings