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Kate Douglas Wiggin, a woman born in Philadelphia of Welsh descent, was an American children's author and educator. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). In the 1880s, she and her sister established a training school for kindergarten teachers. But nowadays she's remembered as a writer of children's books, the best known being The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903). Homespun Tales is a collection of three stories set in the Maine countryside, telling tales of the people of Maine. "Rose O' the River" is about the river of the title, flowing from the Saco Mountains to the Atlantic, and the effect it has on those who live by it. "The Old Peabody Pew" is in the Tory Hill Meeting house, which the Dorcas Society strives to keep maintained with slender means, and serves as the place of reunion of Justin Peabody and his sweetheart Nancy Wentworth when he returns home after fruitless efforts to make a place in the world. "Susanna and Sue" touches upon the lives of the Shaker sect, who vow simplicity, chastity, and holding goods in common, and the difficulties posed for them when young lovers find the rigors of Shaker life too much to bear.