PONKAPOG PAPERS
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
TO FRANCIS BARTLETT
THESE miscellaneous notes and
essays are called Ponkapog Papers
not simply because they chanced, for
the most part, to be written within the
limits of the old Indian Reservation,
but, rather, because there is something
typical of their unpretentiousness in the
modesty with which Ponkapog assumes
to being even a village. The little
Massachusetts settlement, nestled under
the wing of the Blue Hills, has no illu-
sions concerning itself, never mistakes
the cackle of the bourg for the sound
that echoes round the world, and no
more thinks of rivalling great centres of
human activity than these slight papers
dream of inviting comparison between
themselves and important pieces of
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