Ma Pettengill

Harry Leon Wilson (1867-1929 or 28) was the American writer who wrote The Spenders (1902), The Boss of Little Arcady (1905), Bunker Bean (1913), Somewhere in Red Gap (1916), Ma Pettengill (1919), The Wrong Twin (1921) and Merton of the Movies (1922). "From the Arrowhead corrals I strolled up the poplarbordered lane that leads past the bunk house to the castle of the ranch's chatelaine. It was a still Sunday afternoon-the placid interlude, on a day of rest, between the chores of the morning and those of evening. But the calm was for the ear alone. To the eye certain activities, silent but swift, were under way. On the shaded side piazza of the ranch house I could discern my hostess, Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill; she sat erect, even in a rocking-chair, and knitted. On the kitchen steps, full in the westering sun, sat the Chinese chef of the Arrowhead, and knitted-a yellow, smoothly running automaton."