Excerpt from The Way Home: A Novel Charlie Grace was born in the old rectory. It was called the old rectory as early as 1874, though it was one of Robertson's creations, dating only from the fifties. As an expression of architectural taste it was inspired by the Oxford Movement, and the Gothic Revival as then under stood. It is a matter of history that Robertson took Amiens Cathedral as his model for St David's Church, and as an Amiens Cathedral in Connecticut brownstone, dwarfed, denuded and deformed, bearing to its original the relation of a wizened baby to a full-grown man, it stands. For the rectory Robertson got his idea from an English deanery, edifying the New York of his day with a repro duction which was held to be truly ecclesiastical. Charlie Grace's first impressions were, therefore, of doors with pointed arches and corridors artificially vaulted. It was in a dining-room with early English windows adapting themselves awkwardly to muslin curtains and pots of jonquils in Spring, that he first heard mention made of the Colorado Plains. His father had been reading to his mother a letter of the kind familiar to well-disposed persons as an appeal. Mapleton is not a town; it is only a region where the shacks are nearer together than elsewhere. My wife and I find it a convenient centre for our work, while the school, elementary though it is, offers some opportunities to our children. We suffer chiefly, not from lack of food and shelter, but from want of books, clothing and household necessities. There is no town nearer than Proctor, at which we can purchase anything. Our children miss the natural amusements of youth, for the country in itself possesses few resources in that direction. You must understand that the plains are not really plains at all, but great sand-dunes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.