Peter Loon
The time is shortly after the end of the American Revolution. The place is the District of Maine, then a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Peter Loon is a young man whose father has just died. His mother, perhaps not completely sound of mind, wakes Peter in the middle of the night and sends him to look for Obed Winslow, location unknown. Peter has never heard of Obed Winslow, and has never ventured far from his parents’ homestead. The power of Reid’s writing is such that readers discover the wider world right along with Peter, and to discover it thus made me feel as if life had slowed down and calmed down. Peter has a number of interesting adventures, but his greatest luck is in falling in with the itinerant Parson Leach. Together they become involved with events connected to the rebellion of the small homesteaders. These “Liberty Men,” who felt that unsettled land in the forests of Maine belonged to those who cleared it through their back-breaking labor, pitted themselves against the representatives and agents of the “Great Proprietors,” who “claimed vast tracts of territory on the strength of old King’s Grants and often contradictory Indian deeds.”
The characters in this beguiling novel are well drawn. There is a proper villain, and a hero who is almost too good to be true. The historical details never overwhelm, but are critical to the plot and atmosphere of the novel. I hope very much that we will have a chance to follow further adventures of Peter and Parson Leach–I can’t think of a better way to spend my time. In the meantime, read his three “Moosepath League” books, if you haven’t yet had the pleasure.
