Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Behind a white picket fence in the little Cape Cod town of Orham, a dozen toy windmills clatter in the salt breeze, wooden sailors swing their paddles, and little profile sailboats chase one another round and round. The man who makes them is tall, thin, and forever absent-minded, painting sky-blue breeches on a pine sailor while he drawls out homely wisdom. His name is J. Edgar W. Winslow, but all Orham calls him "Shavings."

Joseph C. Lincoln (1870-1944) was the beloved chronicler of Cape Cod, and Shavings (1918) is one of his warmest creations. Around his gentle, comic windmill-maker he gathers a whole seaside community: a banker's spoiled daughter, a young widow with a secret, a hot-tempered hardware dealer nursing an old grudge, and a war that reaches even this quiet corner of the coast. Lincoln's affection for plain New England people, his ear for their drawling talk, and his sure touch with sentiment have kept the book in print and in readers' hearts for more than a century.

For all his foolish reputation, Shavings turns out to be the truest friend in Orham, and his cluttered little shop becomes the place where hidden troubles are quietly set right. It is a story of kindness mistaken for simplicity, of loyalty that asks nothing in return, and of the small heroisms of ordinary life.

Step through the green-painted door, past the stacked sailors and the whirling mills, and meet the people of Orham in the illustrated gallery that follows.