What do you think?
The Depot Master
Behind him in the doorway of the station stood Captain Sol himself. The blue cap he always wore was set back on his head, a cigar tipped upward from the corner of his mouth, and there was a grim look in his eye and about the smooth shaven lips above the short, grayish-brown beard.
Captain Sol Berry, the Depot Master, won't admit that he still loves Olive Seabury, the women he was too stubborn to marry thirty years before. Now a Wealthy banker from off-Cape wants to tear down her home to raise his own mansion on her lot, and everyone in the Cape town of Harnis (don't look for it on a map) is waiting to see what the captain will do about it.
The story takes place on Cape Cod at the turn of the last century when the locals were starting to notice the changes in their world brought by the wealthy off-Cape visitors. Captain Sol hosts the locals every evening at the Harnis Depot where stories are traded while they wait for the evening train. The stories they trade bring these vivid characters, small-town Cape Codders to salty life as they relate an automobile journey that ends on a boat, a scandal at a football match, or the search for romance on a fog-bound river.
The story of Captain Sol and Olive winds around the stories traded at the Harnis Depot where Captain Sol holds court. The stories provide a rich image of the changing times. It is full of salty characters living in the Cape Cod of yesterday when locals gathered together every day to talk, trade stories and laugh over their successes and losses.
Captain Sol Berry, the Depot Master, won't admit that he still loves Olive Seabury, the women he was too stubborn to marry thirty years before. Now a Wealthy banker from off-Cape wants to tear down her home to raise his own mansion on her lot, and everyone in the Cape town of Harnis (don't look for it on a map) is waiting to see what the captain will do about it.
The story takes place on Cape Cod at the turn of the last century when the locals were starting to notice the changes in their world brought by the wealthy off-Cape visitors. Captain Sol hosts the locals every evening at the Harnis Depot where stories are traded while they wait for the evening train. The stories they trade bring these vivid characters, small-town Cape Codders to salty life as they relate an automobile journey that ends on a boat, a scandal at a football match, or the search for romance on a fog-bound river.
The story of Captain Sol and Olive winds around the stories traded at the Harnis Depot where Captain Sol holds court. The stories provide a rich image of the changing times. It is full of salty characters living in the Cape Cod of yesterday when locals gathered together every day to talk, trade stories and laugh over their successes and losses.
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1910
About the author
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
113 books23 followersJoseph Crosby Lincoln (a.k.a Joseph C. Lincoln) was an American author of novels, poems, and short stories, many set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. Lincoln's work frequently appeared in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and The Delineator.
Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film.
Lincoln was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, but his mother moved the family to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a manufacturing city outside of Boston, after the death of his father. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His literary portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. Lincoln was a Republican and a Universalist.
Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham, Massachusetts. In Chatham, he lived in a shingle-style house named "Crosstrees" that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Lincoln died in 1944, at the age of 73, in Winter Park, Florida.
Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film.
Lincoln was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, but his mother moved the family to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a manufacturing city outside of Boston, after the death of his father. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His literary portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. Lincoln was a Republican and a Universalist.
Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham, Massachusetts. In Chatham, he lived in a shingle-style house named "Crosstrees" that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Lincoln died in 1944, at the age of 73, in Winter Park, Florida.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 30, 2024
Dec 29, 615pm ~~ Review asap. Have to decide how I really feel about this one. It was clever and annoying at the same time, and different from all the other Lincoln titles I have read this month.
Dec 30, 1245pm ~~ This book was a surprise discovery. I was looking for something else in my overstuffed bookcases and stumbled across this Lincoln title after I thought I had run out of his books. So of course I snatched it from the shelf to close the year with.
I finished a little earlier than expected, because I ended up skimming through some chapters. The Depot Master has a tangled history when judging by the copyright dates in my edition. The book itself says 1910, but in the small print the first copyrights were by the Ainslee Magazine Company and begin in 1901. Then 1904, '07, and '09.
I had not looked so closely before I started reading but now I think I understand the format of the book. It must have been written as a serial, not appearing all in one volume until 1910. Well, that's my theory now, anyway, and it helps me get over the irritation I felt while reading.
Captain Solomon Berry is the depot master of the title, and the men of the town use the train station as a type of informal clubhouse. They gather to watch the arrival and departure of the train, to tell each other stories until the mail is sorted, then after a trip to the post office some will return to the depot for more gossip.
Basically the book was pretty much a collection of the various stories the men shared, but now that I understand that this book was published in magazines first, I forgive Lincoln a little bit for what seemed to be his way of ignoring Captain Sol except for a few sentences every chapter. There was a story around the man, but by itself it would not have been more than a few pages long. I wondered about that while I was reading but like I said, I never looked closely at the copyright page until later.
Anyway, sorry, I have just come up with this little theory and my brain is shifting to admiration at how Lincoln managed to hook together all the separate stories, even though some of them were not too appealing to me and I did skim through more than a couple of them. The entire tone of the book was indeed as if the reader is sitting in the depot listening to the men of the village telling tales on each other and themselves. Cape Cod dialect is not hard to understand, but some people might get tired of it before the end of the book. There is certainly more here than in other Lincoln titles, because most of the book is technically dialogue.
I did like the way Captain Berry's own tale turns out, so ultimately the book was satisfying, even if I was annoyed with it more often than I expected to be.
Dec 30, 1245pm ~~ This book was a surprise discovery. I was looking for something else in my overstuffed bookcases and stumbled across this Lincoln title after I thought I had run out of his books. So of course I snatched it from the shelf to close the year with.
I finished a little earlier than expected, because I ended up skimming through some chapters. The Depot Master has a tangled history when judging by the copyright dates in my edition. The book itself says 1910, but in the small print the first copyrights were by the Ainslee Magazine Company and begin in 1901. Then 1904, '07, and '09.
I had not looked so closely before I started reading but now I think I understand the format of the book. It must have been written as a serial, not appearing all in one volume until 1910. Well, that's my theory now, anyway, and it helps me get over the irritation I felt while reading.
Captain Solomon Berry is the depot master of the title, and the men of the town use the train station as a type of informal clubhouse. They gather to watch the arrival and departure of the train, to tell each other stories until the mail is sorted, then after a trip to the post office some will return to the depot for more gossip.
Basically the book was pretty much a collection of the various stories the men shared, but now that I understand that this book was published in magazines first, I forgive Lincoln a little bit for what seemed to be his way of ignoring Captain Sol except for a few sentences every chapter. There was a story around the man, but by itself it would not have been more than a few pages long. I wondered about that while I was reading but like I said, I never looked closely at the copyright page until later.
Anyway, sorry, I have just come up with this little theory and my brain is shifting to admiration at how Lincoln managed to hook together all the separate stories, even though some of them were not too appealing to me and I did skim through more than a couple of them. The entire tone of the book was indeed as if the reader is sitting in the depot listening to the men of the village telling tales on each other and themselves. Cape Cod dialect is not hard to understand, but some people might get tired of it before the end of the book. There is certainly more here than in other Lincoln titles, because most of the book is technically dialogue.
I did like the way Captain Berry's own tale turns out, so ultimately the book was satisfying, even if I was annoyed with it more often than I expected to be.
April 10, 2009
Yet another wonderful installment to Mr. Lincoln's accomplishments. I feel as if I know these characters, or that, if I didn't, I most certainly ended the final chapter with a thorough acquaintance if not kinship with them. I am amassing a collection of his books, and would love nothing better than to own every one, and to spend my afternoons reading them--out loud to eager ears or just alone--without another care in the world! (Of course, that's a hypothetically dreamy sentiment--I'm sure I would tire of such inaction after a while, but my exaggeration endeavors to show that I was not at all disappointed by another book by Joseph Lincoln. :) )
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews