_Thus the conditions of life in colonial Narragansett were widely different from those of other New England colonies. The establishment of and adherence to the Church of England, and the universal prevalence of African slavery, evolved a social life resembling that of the Virginian plantation rather than of the Puritan farm. It was a community of many superstitions, to which the folk-customs of the feast-days of the English Church, the evil communications of witch-seeking Puritan neighbors, the voodooism of the negro slaves, the pow wows of the native red men, all added a share and infinite variety. It was a plantation of wealth, of vast flocks and herds, of productive soil, of great crops, of generous living; all these are vanished from the life there to-day, but still the fields are smiling and the lakes and the bay are blue and beautiful as of yore; and a second prosperity is dawning in the old Kings Province in the universal establishment therein of happy summer-homes._ _In memory of many perfect days spent on Narragansett roads and lanes, of days in Narragansett woods or on the shore, these pages have been written._ _ALICE MORSE EARLE._ _WICKFORD, RHODE ISLAND, Midsummer Eve, 1897._ CONTENTS PAGE _A Narragansett Elopement_ _1_ _Narragansett Weavers_ _23_ _Where Three Towns Meet_ _51_ _Tuggie Bannocks’s Moonack_ _63_ _A Black Politician_ _77_ _The Witch Sheep_ _103_ _The Crusoes of the Noon-House_ _121_ _The Doctor’s Pie-Plates_ _139_ _My Delft Apothecary Jars_ _151_ _The Dancing Turkey_ _169_ _Cuddymonk’s Ghost_ _181_ A NARRAGANSETT ELOPEMENT