Parables Of A Province And Other Tales

"Their eyes meet as one . . . yet he is versed in evil, and she taught in good; and he is a vagrant of the snows -- the fruits of whose life are like the contemptible stones of the desert -- while she is the keeper of a goodly lodge."

Brought to sorrow by this man, the shattered woman travels days to the one place that promises peace: the lonely Tent That Stands on the Mount of Lost Winters.

"The Tent of the Purple Mat" is just one of the simple yet heartfelt stories in "Parables of a Province." A man revives after a dozen years of illness and forgetfulness, to find his devoted wife laboring at the forge, in "The Forge in the Valley." An old man is called to help, again and again, an ungrateful village -- until he finally has reason to refuse, in "There Was a Little City." In these and other tales, Sir Gilbert Parker lifts the life of the northern pioneer into the realms of myth and fable.