The Little Alvernon stories were born out of bedtime stories told by my father, the late Alvernon Winship Boynton. I can still hear his deep gravelly voice tinged with Down East humor as he spun the tales of his boyhood growing up on a small farm in Maine in the early twentieth century. These stories afford glimpses of an era unfamiliar to us - of daily living without indoor plumbing, electric appliances, automobiles, television, computer technology, and all the conveniences we moderns take for granted. Little Alvernon knew nothing of these conveniences, but he knew about cooking on a woodstove, hauling water from the well, gathering eggs from the hen house, hitching up the horses for haying, milking the cows, churning butter, and fetching big blocks of ice from the sawdust at the neighbor's ice house for the ice box. And in these common, everyday activities of his life, this mischievous, imaginative little boy found ways to have fun, while getting himself into (and out of) real predicaments.
About the Author: Born of Vernon and Abbie on October 27, 1944, Linda Lee Boynton slept to the sawing of wood and the pounding of nails during the renovations at 17 Rowell Street in Madison, Maine. She was the youngest of four children and always considered the baby. She attended Weston Avenue Elementary where her mother was a kindergarten teacher and Madison Junior High where her father was the principal. Everyone knew her parents in this small mill town along the Kennebec River. She reminisces, "I can still see and smell the pulp that was piled high in the mill yard and hear and feel the water thundering over the dam between Madison and Anson." Linda attended Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, where she received a degree in French. She met her husband Robert Pedersen there. After he received an officer's commission in the army, they left New England. Their first child, Cheri, was born in California. After Robert returned from duty in Vietnam, they returned to the Northeast and settled into their 1730 home in Danville, New Hampshire. Their second daughter, Jessica, and son, Erik, were born there. Her husband began his civilian career in education. While raising their three children, Linda pursued many interests and careers, including co-owning a craft shop, designing gymnastic wear, and managing in retail. She was involved in church activities and small group Bible studies. Much of her poetry and journal writing was done during this time. When her children were older, Linda began to consider re-instating her teacher certification. About her decision to teach, Linda reflects, "Like many women my age who stayed home to raise a family, I entered the profession later in life. I had not planned to teach. This was a surprising turn. Teaching is very demanding, but I felt drawn to it - in the sense of joining my family's lineage of educators." Linda was active on the board of her state language association for twenty years and was the editor of NHAWLT's newsletter. When she retired from teaching in 2008, Linda focused on publishing The Little Alvernon Stories. In 2001, Linda published a poetry anthology Words like Pebbles: the Poetic Voice of Three Generations (ISBN 0-595-17657-7). This compilation of poems written by women of three different generations (Linda's mother, her daughter, and herself) is amazingly similar in its intergenerational roots to the Little Alvernon project - looking to the past for a clearer view of the present and an enduring hope for the future.