Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Kate Douglas (Smith) Wiggin (Riggs), is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 4359 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Gilbert's pride was terribly wounded, but his spirits rose a little later when he found that he would only have to wait twenty minutes in the Lowell station before a slow train for Greentown would pick him up, and that he should still reach his destination before bedtime, and need never disclose his stupidity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Refreshing and delightful
I had to hunt this one down.I love the movie "Summer Magic" which was based on the book.I have rarely read a book so fast.It was so refreshing to read of another, less uptight era where neighbors cared abouteach other and happily gave of their time and means to help a family theyhad never met.The Carey's have a magical quality that is all their own,bringing joy to those around them.Mrs. Carey refers to her children asher chickens, thus the title.Mrs. Carey is the perfect mother, mixinglove with her admonishing.And Nancy's high spirits are contagious. Compared to today's fiction, this may seem like agoody-goody-dreamworld-story, but it was a wonderful story.It made mewonder if such a world may really exist someday.It was so positive andedifying.I wish that Kate Douglas Wiggins had written a whole seriesabout the Carey family.

This is a "breath of fresh air" kind of book in a our world.
Kate Douglas Wiggin penned a wonderful piece of literature with an uncanny gift for providing serenity.It is an old-fashioned story about an old fashioned family. The Carey family faces seemingly insurmountable problemsbut persevere with dignity and grace.The characters are real, not goody,goody, but they possess an innate goodness that comes with carefulparenting and being bred in a time of high moral standards.Perhaps itseems a bit whimsical to dream of such bygone ideals, but this book givesone hope of discovering them again. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
It was Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fourth of December, and the weary sisters of the Dorcas band rose from their bruised knees and removed their little stores of carpet-tacks from their mouths. This was a feminine custom of long standing, and as no village dressmaker had ever died of pins in the digestive organs, so were no symptoms of carpet-tacks ever discovered in any Dorcas, living or dead. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
In alluding to myself as a Goose Girl, I am using only the most modest of my titles; for I am also a poultry-maid, a tender of Belgian hares and rabbits, and a shepherdess; but I particularly fancy the role of Goose Girl, because it recalls the German fairy tales of my early youth, when I always yearned, but never hoped, to be precisely what I now am. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Waitstill is a little too good to be true
Published in 1913 by Kate Douglas Wiggin, The Story of Waitstill Baxter is intended for an adult audience. Famous for her children's books, most notably Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin addresses serious social issues in this story.

Waitstill Baxter, a young woman caring for a younger sister and an ogre like father, is a model of all the virtues. Her father, a mean spirited, hot-tempered man, had buried three wives, all of whom were described as glad to die to get out of his household. Despite these unpromising circumstances, Waitstill and her sister Patience grow into beautiful, innocent, and virtuous young women who are capable housekeepers and models of early twentieth century womanhood. Though they and another primary character, Ivory Boynton, face trials and tribulations, the story has a happy ending in which the virtuous triumph, and the wicked suffer. Patience Baxter, the younger sister, is the most interesting character, since she is allowed to have a little bit of human weakness in the form of wishing for nice things and rebelling against the father's strictures. Waitstill is so good that no one could really identify with her--unless other readers are also completely virtuous at every moment.

Touches of humor make this is good read. The dialogue is often funny, such as the discussion of "entomology" [etymology] describing the history of various words in an absolutely ridiculous manner.The courtship efforts of the character Cephas are also a source of fun.

It is also interesting to this reader that Wiggin introduces serious social issues through the vehicle of a novel. This story touches on the status of women, poverty, the dark side of patriarchy, suicide, adultery, serial marriages, illegitimate birth, child abuse, domestic violence, and mental illness. In the early twentieth century many female authors were writing stories that brought alive the social ills of the day, particularly the status of orphans, and placing these topics in the context of readable and popular stories. Gene Stratton Porter, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Jean Webster, Eleanor Porter, Lucy Maud Montgomery and others wrote popular novels depicting the experiences of children dealing with congregate care in orphanages, poverty, child abuse, orphaned status, and the experiences of women struggling to be accepted and acknowledged as full human beings--capable of "womanly virtues" while also being persons of learning and intelligence.
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